Pliny the Elder and His Place in Antique and Mediaeval Writings on Architecture

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CHAPTER ONE

PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN ANTIQUE AND MEDIAEVAL WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE

efore embarking on a study of the renaissance response B to Pliny the Elder’s passages on architecture in the Naturalis historia, let us briefly consider the content and scope of his account, its place in the classical literary tradition, and its relationship to other writings covering architecture, above all to De architectura by Vitruvius.1 Pliny is unique among those ancient authors who describe buildings and the art of building. As we shall see, his text combines material from the architectural marvel tradition with information on proportions and construction typically found in technical treatises; his often breathless accounts of the Wonders of the World – stunning architectural set pieces erected around the Mediterranean basin to honour gods, heroes, and kings – are set alongside cool analyses of different building fabrics and structural elements. What is more, Pliny cleverly shapes these two strands to promote his overarching thesis: the world is rich in remarkable phenomena, both natural and manmade, but most of these have been assimilated, conquered, or surpassed by imperial Rome. De architectura inspires this argument, yet much of its theoretical material and terminology is jettisoned to suit Pliny’s audience of non-specialists. Perhaps as a result of this general appeal, Pliny’s curious account of architecture would remain influential well into late antiquity and the Middle Ages, more so than the strictures of Vitruvius’s work.

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12 PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE

the marvel tradition, its sources, and pliny’s foreign architectural marvels Pliny was by no means the first author to record instances of remarkable architecture. A rich vein of literature dealing with the Wonders of the World flourished in antiquity. The first signs can be observed in the work of Herodotus and fragments from Ctesias of Cnidus dating to the fifth century BC.2 While both authors would subsequently gain the unenviable soubriquet Father of Lies, their interest in the great and marvellous works of Asia –“ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά”3 – sparked the interest of subsequent generations. The tradition reached its apogee some two centuries later during the mid-Hellenistic period in the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt and the East.4 Callimachus of Cyrene (310/05–240 BC), a poet-scholar at the famed Library of Alexandria, composed a now-lost commentary, “ϑαυμάτων τῶνεἰς ἅπασαν τὴνγῆνκατὰ τόπους ὄντων συναγωγή,” or “Collection of Wonders across the Whole World [Listed] by Place.” The theme was continued in a later poem by Antipater of Sidon describing θεάματα, “things to be seen” (second century BC), fortunately preserved by a Byzantine scribe in the Anthologia Palatina, where we find the first surviving canon of seven buildings: the Walls of Babylon; the statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Hanging Gardens; the Colossus of Rhodes; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Pyramids; and, most impressive of all, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.5 The tradition continued in the writings of Greek and Roman authors closer to Pliny’s time, such as Diodorus Siculus,6 Strabo,7 Pausanias,8 Vitruvius,9 Propertius,10 and Martial.11 There were, in fact, two traditions that ran in tandem.12 The first was a canon of seven monuments, most of which are still familiar to modern readers, the original idea for which has been credited to Ctesias. The second group is less clearly defined and arose from political wrangling between cities, resulting in further marvels being added; by late antiquity this parallel collection included as many as thirty structures.13 The early canonical Seven, as given in Antipater, are all mentioned at some point in the Naturalis historia: from the Walls of Babylon (praised in Book VI on Near Eastern geography)14 to the Colossus of Rhodes and the chryselephantine statue of Olympian Zeus (both located in Book XXXIV on metals),15 then on to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus,16 the Pyramids at Giza,17 the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,18 and the Temple of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesus19 (all four scattered around Book XXXVI).20 But judging from his use of language, Pliny subscribed to the second tradition as well;21 his descriptions of lesser-known structures are often prefaced by a verb that denotes communication –“legitur” (“it is read”), for instance, or “dicun- tur” (“they are said”) – suggesting that here, again, he relied on pre-existing written accounts.22 Consulting this more expansive list led Pliny to include

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many more wonders than the canonical septem miracula. Indeed, some are known from his text alone.23 Pliny’s literary sources on marvellous architecture are many and varied. In Book I, he lists the subjects that he covers in each volume, followed by the authors that he consulted, both foreign and Roman.24 Afewofthenamesarestill familiar to us, but many more are obscure, their works extant only in fragments or known solely through Pliny. Of the foreign authorities, the best known are Herodotus and Theophrastus; others such as Juba, Demoteles, and Apion less so. Pliny does not name Strabo in his list of authors, but the brief description of early imperial Rome found in Strabo’s Geographia – perhaps derived from a common source – proved inﬂuential on his vision of Rome: both writers admire the sewers and aqueducts that had been cut through mountains, feats of engineering that they regard as utilitarian ornament to the city.25 Pliny was well versed, too, in Latin literature on the subject. In fact, the Naturalis historia contains excerpts about remarkable architecture taken from a wide range of Roman texts, most of which no longer survive. One of his most important sources was the republican-era polymath, Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC); from various references and quotations in Book XXXVI, it is clear that Pliny turned to Varro’streatiseDe novem disciplinis, a composition that considered architecture worthy of being studied as a liberal art alongside grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, and medicine. Several of Pliny’s passages on exceptional marble sculpture, as well as his description of the peculiar tomb of the Etruscan king Lars Porsenna, derive from Varro’slostwork.26 Also prominent is Gaius Licinius Mucianus, one of Pliny’s contemporaries.27 Governor of Lycia, then of Syria, where he failed to put down the Jewish revolt and was replaced in 69 AD by Vespasian, Mucianus compiled a treatise – now lost – on the natural history and geography of the East that covered the miraculous events, architecture, and phenomena that he had either encountered directly or heard others recollect. Pliny incorporates a number of Mucianus’s observations on a variety of topics, from the petriﬁcation of funerary goods28 to the vast numbers of statues on the island of Rhodes.29 Not surprisingly, given this rich seam of source material, Pliny’s catalogue of ancient architectural marvels is the most varied to have survived from the antique world. Book I lists a series of overseas structures, the opera mirabilia in terris (“marvellous works in foreign lands”), a lively selection of monuments made from various types of stone that is as diverse as any presented by a Greek historian and, for the most part, unavailable in other classical sources:

The Egyptian Sphinx The Pyramids The Pharos [Lighthouse at Alexandria] Labyrinths [Egyptian; Cretan; Lemnian; Etruscan]

14 PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE

Hanging Gardens A hanging city [Thebes in Egypt] The Temple of Diana at Ephesus Remarkable aspects of other temples [buildings at Cyzicus] The fugitive stone The sevenfold echo Buildings without nails30 These headings relate to a substantial section that begins roughly a third of the way into Book XXXVI. For compositional reasons, two other structures are located slightly earlier in the same book: the “Mausoleum of Caria”–that is, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus – features in connection with artists working in marble; while the discussion of obelisks, including “the one that acts as the upright pin of an astronomical device [gnomon] in the Campus Martius,” is incorporated into a previous chapter dealing with the applications of red granite.31

pliny, vitruvius, and the glories of ancient rome To counterbalance the presence of so many far-off monuments in what was, after all, a composition aimed at a Roman audience, Pliny offers an immediate corrective: “eighteen wondrous works at Rome” (“Romae miracula operum XVIII”), a large section in Book XXXVI that is devoted solely to Roman architectural achievements. Linking the two parts – metaphorically and physi- cally – is the Sublician Bridge, which, in common with one famous foreign structure, had been erected in wood but without the use of nails.32 The choice is apt since the bridge had, by merit of its design, prevented Lars Porsenna from fording the Tiber, thus preserving Rome’s integrity from harmful foreign influ- ences – not least, the Etruscan passion for building outlandish monuments, notably the type of labyrinth-tomb that Porsenna had raised to his personal glory. Since these “eighteen wondrous works” are not specified individually in the summarium in Book I, it is not clear how Pliny reaches this figure: he cites more than eighteen structures, several of which are located in the vicinity of Rome rather than in the city itself. A possible list could comprise the following:

The Circus Maximus constructed by Caesar The Basilica of Aemilius Paullus The Forum of Augustus Vespasian’s Temple of Peace The roof of the Ballot Oﬃce built by Marcus Agrippa The great cost of the Forum of Caesar The expense of the house of Clodius The rampart raised by Tarquinius Superbus

PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE 15

Substructures beneath the Capitoline Hill The sewers created by Tarquinius Priscus The house of Lepidus and the proliferation of grand houses The palaces of Caligula and Nero The Theatre of Marcus Scaurus The twin rotating theatres of Gaius Curio The aqueducts of Quintus Marcius Rex Agrippa’s restoration and enlargement of the water supply Works carried out by Claudius to complete an aqueduct and drain the Fucine Lake Harbour works at Ostia and assorted engineering works in Italy33 With these two categories of buildings – foreign and Roman – Pliny promotes an understanding of architecture quite alien to that recorded by previous writers in the marvel tradition, and indeed to the account given by Vitruvius. De architectura interprets the history of architecture in terms of development and decline: early man learnt from the example of nature, moving from caves to huts built on the model of bird nests; gathering around fires, the first builders exchanged ideas and began to tame nature in line with their needs.34 Eventually, cities were constructed in harmony with their surroundings,35 with buildings designed on a modular system based on the proportions of the human body36 – a system that developed in classical Greece, especially in the design of temples.37 Yet by his time, Vitruvius remarks, the aesthetic and moral values of architecture were under threat from modern practices such as the mixing of the column orders – departures from Rome’s noble Greek inheritance.38 For Pliny, however, Rome reached its architectural pinnacle in the age of the Flavian emperors.39 Whereas painting and sculpture had, in Pliny’s view, been in decline since the Roman conquest of Greece, only occasionally recovering their past brilliance,40 architecture in the age of Vespasian was only just beginning to realise its full potential. Building was not a dying art, a point that he is keen to emphasise.41 According to this narrative, primitive construction comprised wooden structures42 and huts built from mud in imitation of swallow nests.43 Stone architecture began with Eastern despots, who constructed grand edifices for the sole purpose of self-promotion; the Greeks turned the discipline into an art, finding ever more inventive ways of inspiring awe in the viewer; but it was the Romans who took the discipline to new heights by marrying beauty to utility and stability on an unprecedented scale, in the process creating architectural wonders of their own. As the divisions of Pliny’s list recognise, there were two competing tendencies in Rome: the first – and earliest, historically speaking – was to serve the common interest; the second trend, which began in the late Republic, led to the creation of buildings that conferred personal pleasure or political advantage. Pliny is

16 PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE

aware of this troubling dichotomy, but he lays the blame for Roman extra- vagance on malign foreign inﬂuences; the luxuria of the East and the utilitas of Rome are, unfortunately, but two sides of the same coin. Not unlike Vitruvius, who had complained of architectural abuses, Pliny detects unwelcome features in the new architectural landscape.

the passages taken by pliny from vitruvius Pliny is linked to Vitruvius in two key respects. First, his Naturalis historia is one of only five extant classical texts to cite the architect as an authority in his field. Vitruvius had bewailed the situation and indirectly appealed for more Roman treatises to be written on architecture; however, if he had seen the results of his appeal, he would have been disappointed. As far as we know, few Latin texts were composed on the subject in the period spanning the early Empire to late antiquity, though a handful of authors mention Vitruvius as a specialist:44 Frontinus at the end of the first century AD;45 Faventinus in the third;46 Servius in the fourth;47 and, finally, the Gallo-Roman poet and saint Sidonius Apollinaris in the fifth.48 But Pliny is the earliest – at least among those authors whose writings have survived. Second, the Naturalis historia is not a compendium drawing heavily on De architectura, in the style of De diversis fabricis architectonicae by Faventinus, or De re rustica by Palladius, which borrows from Faventinus, but the reworking of Vitruvian material into an entirely new context – an exhaustive appraisal of the natural world. The manner in which Pliny incorporates Vitruvian material into his narrative is significant. His primary interest lies in natural substances and the uses to which they can be put. Thus he consults Books II, III, and IV of De architectura for material that he deems pertinent to his discourse of man’s occasionally remarkable – but mostly destructive – meddling with nature.49 For instance, passages from Vitruvius on the properties of different types of wood feature in Book XVI of the Naturalis historia about trees;50 Vitruvius’s account of bricks is allocated to Book XXXV, where the topic is earth and clay,51 while the discussion of sand-lime in De architectura is assigned to Book XXXVI, the realm of stone and stone-cutting.52 Setting the two texts side by side, the extent to which Pliny has modified the content of De architectura for his audience becomes clear. His chapter in Book XXXVI on the different types of column is a good example.53 Part of a digression on the natural composition and properties of stucco, at first glance it appears to be a basic patchwork of quotations and paraphrases from Vitruvius.54 Closer inspection, however, reveals that Pliny is both simplifying and amplify- ing his source. Vitruvius had described Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian genera of temples, together with Tuscan dispositio; Pliny, conversely, divorces each column from its architectural setting – its base and entablature – and so renders

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its form abstract and self-contained. What is more, he simplifies the Vitruvian system of column proportions. In Books III and IV of De architectura Vitruvius indicates that the shafts of the Greek orders had two proportions in their height–width ratios: “primitive” and “mature.”55 Contrary to Vitruvius, and in order to avoid confusion, Pliny assigns just one proportion to the shaft of each order. He distinguishes between the Doric and the Tuscan columns by giving the Doric its “primitive” measurement (6:1) and its “mature” to the Tuscan (7:1). Similarly, the Ionic is separated from the Corinthian: the former had a “primitive” and a “mature” measurement (8:1 and 9:1), while the latter had only a “mature” (9:1).56 Such a sliding scale is far more intelligible for the non-specialist reader. Pliny also expands the Vitruvian list of column genera. For Vitruvius, the Tuscan type was a dispositio; in the Naturalis historia,it is a fully fledged Italian genus with a proportion more slender than the Greek Doric. In addition, Pliny relates, there was the quadrangular Attic column – an architectonic member mentioned nowhere by Vitruvius, though this is not explicitly credited as a genus. A similar pattern emerges in other passages taken from Vitruvius. Pliny’s section on brick walls in Book XXXV is a tapestry of sentences taken from Book II of De architectura that have been copied outright or compressed, and then deftly reordered – all in a bid to underline the marvellous character of particular substances. Vitruvius’s discussion of pozzolana, a volcanic ash used for underwater foundations, becomes, in Pliny’s hands, part of a reflection on the material’s extraordinary properties.57 The Vitruvian section on bricks is couched in a discourse on their spectacular applications.58 Likewise, the reports with which Vitruvius illustrates the qualities of construction materials – his reference, for instance, to the durability of the cypress roof at the Temple of Diana at Ephesus – are taken by Pliny and incorporated into his lists of natural wonders.59 Tellingly, Pliny does not always understand the sense of the passages that he is borrowing. At one point, addressing the topic of masonry courses in Book XXXVI, he misconstrues Vitruvius, believing that the term diatonos refers to rubble infill (“fracta caementa”), whereas it in fact denotes the technique in which stones were inserted across the full width of the wall to provide additional stability.60

a break from vitruvius: pliny’s architectural thought and terminology There are, therefore, considerable divergences between the two texts. As beﬁts a work on natural history, at the heart of Book XXXVI lies the notion that stone provides structure and stability in the natural world. Man interferes by cutting up natural barriers such as mountains and promontories in his vainglor- ious search for precious marbles and minerals – many more types than were

18 PLINY THE ELDER AND HIS PLACE IN WRITINGS ON ARCHITECTURE

known at the time of Vitruvius. These excavations can, however, be harnessed for good; when man chooses to build great aqueducts or drain lakes, he has to bore through hills. For Pliny, the quarrying of mountains ultimately results in the construction of cities. And while some cities are created as varicoloured statements of wealth and power by their rulers, others are devised with the needs of their inhabitants in mind. Rome is a supreme example of the latter (so Pliny argues), a metropolis built to serve the people. Its hills are honey- combed by tunnels for sewers and underground rivers – all these projects being carried out in the public interest, while the structures above ground cater for every aspect of civic life, from defence (the rampart) to administration (Agrippa’s Ballot Office) and entertainment (the Circus Maximus). The imperial capital is what Pliny calls an “urbs pensilis,” a “hanging city,” where stone is stacked into towers and new hills rest on vaulted substructures.61 Should its monuments be set in a heap, Pliny claims, the viewer would experience something akin to a vision of another world all concentrated in one place.62 Needless to say, this is not a Vitruvian attitude towards the knowledge and practical experience required for the art of construction. In Book I Vitruvius famously declares that the architect should possess scientia in several fields, which, if they are scrupulously followed, should eventually lead the practitioner to the metaphorical “highest temple of architecture” (“summum templum architecturae”).63 This proficiency can be achieved only after many travails; it does not suddenly materialise as a phantasmagoric assembly of buildings. In Vitruvius’s opinion, scientia is the product of diligent application, sollertia, and is hard-won by any would-be architect. By contrast, the Naturalis historia introduces the term scientia just once in connection with architecture when, in Book VII, Pliny acclaims without further explanation the expertise of Chersiphron, the builder of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, and Dinochares (Dinocrates in De architectura), the planner of Alexandria.64 In Vitruvius’s account, “Dinocrates” was flawed and had to learn from the criticism of Alexander the Great. For Pliny, “Dinochares” had great ability but his development – gained through personal experience – is never discussed.65 In this sense, Pliny adopts a very different approach from Vitruvius. The discourse of De architectura is openly rhetorical, with its Ciceronian inflections and emphasis on the concepts of inventio, dispositio, eloquentia, memoria, and pronuntiatio.66 Pliny has no such intellectual programme concerning architecture. The Naturalis historia is, first and foremost, a catalogue of the natural world and its raw materials, a moralising tract that celebrates the marvels of nature only to condemn their destruction by man. With a different readership in mind, Pliny sidesteps the theoretical underpinnings of Vitruvius’s treatise. Ideas central to Vitruvian thought are sidelined or contradicted. An architectus, for Vitruvius, should have practical competence (fabrica), be capable of speculative reasoning (ratiocinatio), and be versed in a range of fields (disciplinae).67 Pliny

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never defines what is required for the profession. For Pliny, man possesses reason (ratio) yet abuses it when he despoils the natural world. In this respect, the two authors are diametrically opposed.68 According to De architectura, the experienced architect may develop a degree of diversity in his work by exercising his sound personal judgement.69 The Naturalis historia, on the other hand, maintains that nature is the true source of ratio. The human equivalent frequently leads to wanton excess (luxuria)70 or frivolous delights (deliciae),71 both of which are symptoms of folly (insania).72 Man’s prime folly is his craving for stone, and grand buildings are – all too often – testimony to his vanity.73 The work of the architect can prove morally and socially detrimental, despite conferring lasting fame on its patron.74 The Plinian and Vitruvian visions of architecture also differ in other ways. While Pliny retains Vitruvius’s belief in the rôle of decor and utilitas in architecture, he eschews the key Vitruvian notion of magnificentia. Book VI of De architectura argues that a building – public or private – is rendered magnificent by beautiful and expensive materials, and will, as a result, satisfy a variety of concerns from artistic to aesthetic, social to political.75 Aristotle defines the analogous concept, μεγαλοπρέπεια, as the consequence of euergetism when it has been stripped of self-aggrandisement;76 Pliny chooses to follow the Greek reading rather than the formulation advocated by his Roman predecessor. According to Pliny’s interpretation, true magnificentia was first practised by the Greeks rather than by oriental tyrants fuelled by their outrageous wealth. A fine example was the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; erected over a period of 120 years with contributions from all Asia, the shrine had no fewer than 127 columns donated by individual kings.77 Also praised highly (“magnificatur”) was the Lighthouse at Alexandria. It was, in fact, doubly beneficial. Not only did the patron, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283–46 BC), construct the tower to safeguard sailors nearing the Egyptian coastline, “with great spirit” (“magno animo”) he even allowed the architect to inscribe his own name on the structure.78 The mantle then passed to Rome, where magnificentia was practised on a scale hitherto not seen. A vast number of buildings demonstrated that there was a widespread belief in the city that architecture should serve the common good yet impress the viewer by combining grandeur with utility. Among such magnificent edifices were the Basilica of Aemilius Paullus, the Forum of Augustus, and Vespasian’s Temple of Peace,79 not to mention Agrippa’s programme of water management with its 700 basins, 500 fountains, 130 reservoirs –“many magnificent in their decoration”–300 statues of marble or bronze, and 400 marble columns.80 For Pliny, the beauty of these projects was determined as much by their function as by their outward appearance; spectacles that were considered by Romans to be customary displays of magnificentia are given short shrift by Pliny, the most obvious instance being his dismissal of the wasteful and dangerous temporary theatres assembled by

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Marcus Scaurus and Gaius Curio as part of their civic duties when they served as aediles.81 Likewise, man’s powers of invention are treated very differently in the Naturalis historia. Whereas Vitruvius rates human creativity in purely intellectual terms, inventio for Pliny results from man’s intervention in nature: innovations or discoveries stem from observation of one’s surroundings. De architectura approaches the design process as a complex sequence of calcula- tions and adjustments, while in the Naturalis historia it is often a more numinous affair. Some builders possessed an exceptional understanding (cognitio) of their discipline, having received their insights from a deity, usually one linked to the natural world. The architect Chersiphron completed the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, site of a famous fertility cult, but only after the moon goddess had appeared to him in a dream and offered him the solution to his construction woes.82 Or again, obelisks were petrified rays of the sun, and the first pharaoh to create one, a certain Mesphres, was instructed to do so while he slept, presumably by the solar god Ra.83 The term architectus, as used in the Naturalis historia, denotes an expert engineer. Always named, these figures were responsible for various impressive deeds: raising temple vaults or architraves into place, floating an obelisk downstream, creating a hanging walkway, or covering an open theatre.84 Pliny also refers to the constructor as artifex. In these cases, the designer is usually anonymous and formulates some of the more imaginative projects in Pliny’s entire account: sculpting the sides of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the chariot at its summit; piling pyramids on top of one another at the Etruscan labyrinth; setting threads of gold or little tubes between masonry blocks in a temple at Cyzicus; devising a pair of revolving theatres for the Roman aedile Curio.85 The principal artifex, however, is nature, with its many inimitable creations,86 a model that man attempts to understand and thereby display his ingenium, or innate talent:87 the mathematician Novius Facundus possessed ingenium since he understood the heavens when transforming an obelisk into an astronomical instrument, as did the designer/patron of the temple at Cyzicus, whose clever device allowed rays of light and breeze to penetrate the inner sanctum.88 Good architecture, for Pliny, is a carefully weighted balance between nature and the human realm. In the Naturalis historia buildings are considered extensions of the natural world; as such, they are categorised in accordance with the materials deployed in their construction. Yet Pliny does not treat architecture in anthropomorphic terms. Key Vitruvian passages on the relationship between man and architecture are passed over, such as anecdotes regarding the Ionic column, the Corinthian capital, and their origins in the female form.89 An incidental observation regarding the obelisk-gnomon is the closest Pliny gets to relating architectural elements to human beings; an obelisk was relocated to the