Ten Books on Architecture

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7. If one wishes a more accurate understanding of all this, he need only
consider and observe the natures of birds, fishes, and land animals, and
he will thus come to reflect upon distinctions of temperament. One form
of mixture is proper to birds, another to fishes, and a far different
form to land animals. Winged creatures have less of the earthy, less
moisture, heat in moderation, air in large amount. Being made up,
therefore, of the lighter elements, they can more readily soar away into
the air. Fish, with their aquatic nature, being moderately supplied with
heat and made up in great part of air and the earthy, with as little of
moisture as possible, can more easily exist in moisture for the very
reason that they have less of it than of the other elements in their
bodies; and so, when they are drawn to land, they leave life and water
at the same moment. Similarly, the land animals, being moderately
supplied with the elements of air and heat, and having less of the
earthy and a great deal of moisture, cannot long continue alive in the
water, because their portion of moisture is already abundant.

8. Therefore, if all this is as we have explained, our reason showing us
that the bodies of animals are made up of the elements, and these
bodies, as we believe, giving way and breaking up as a result of excess
or deficiency in this or that element, we cannot but believe that we
must take great care to select a very temperate climate for the site of
our city, since healthfulness is, as we have said, the first requisite.

9. I cannot too strongly insist upon the need of a return to the method
of old times. Our ancestors, when about to build a town or an army post,
sacrificed some of the cattle that were wont to feed on the site
proposed and examined their livers. If the livers of the first victims
were dark-coloured or abnormal, they sacrificed others, to see whether
the fault was due to disease or their food. They never began to build
defensive works in a place until after they had made many such trials
and satisfied themselves that good water and food had made the liver
sound and firm. If they continued to find it abnormal, they argued from
this that the food and water supply found in such a place would be just
as unhealthy for man, and so they moved away and changed to another
neighbourhood, healthfulness being their chief object.

10. That pasturage and food may indicate the healthful qualities of a
site is a fact which can be observed and investigated in the case of
certain pastures in Crete, on each side of the river Pothereus, which
separates the two Cretan states of Gnosus and Gortyna. There are cattle
at pasture on the right and left banks of that river, but while the
cattle that feed near Gnosus have the usual spleen, those on the other
side near Gortyna have no perceptible spleen. On investigating the
subject, physicians discovered on this side a kind of herb which the
cattle chew and thus make their spleen small. The herb is therefore
gathered and used as a medicine for the cure of splenetic people. The
Cretans call it [Greek: hasplenon]. From food and water, then, we may
learn whether sites are naturally unhealthy or healthy.

11. If the walled town is built among the marshes themselves, provided
they are by the sea, with a northern or north-eastern exposure, and are
above the level of the seashore, the site will be reasonable enough. For
ditches can be dug to let out the water to the shore, and also in times
of storms the sea swells and comes backing up into the marshes, where
its bitter blend prevents the reproductions of the usual marsh
creatures, while any that swim down from the higher levels to the shore
are killed at once by the saltness to which they are unused. An instance
of this may be found in the Gallic marshes surrounding Altino, Ravenna,
Aquileia, and other towns in places of the kind, close by marshes. They
are marvellously healthy, for the reasons which I have given.

12. But marshes that are stagnant and have no outlets either by rivers
or ditches, like the Pomptine marshes, merely putrefy as they stand,
emitting heavy, unhealthy vapours. A case of a town built in such a spot
was Old Salpia in Apulia, founded by Diomede on his way back from Troy,
or, according to some writers, by Elpias of Rhodes. Year after year
there was sickness, until finally the suffering inhabitants came with a
public petition to Marcus Hostilius and got him to agree to seek and
find them a proper place to which to remove their city. Without delay he
made the most skilful investigations, and at once purchased an estate
near the sea in a healthy place, and asked the Senate and Roman people
for permission to remove the town. He constructed the walls and laid out
the house lots, granting one to each citizen for a mere trifle. This
done, he cut an opening from a lake into the sea, and thus made of the
lake a harbour for the town. The result is that now the people of Salpia
live on a healthy site and at a distance of only four miles from the old
town.

CHAPTER V

THE CITY WALLS

1. After insuring on these principles the healthfulness of the future
city, and selecting a neighbourhood that can supply plenty of food
stuffs to maintain the community, with good roads or else convenient
rivers or seaports affording easy means of transport to the city, the
next thing to do is to lay the foundations for the towers and walls. Dig
down to solid bottom, if it can be found, and lay them therein, going as
deep as the magnitude of the proposed work seems to require. They should
be much thicker than the part of the walls that will appear above
ground, and their structure should be as solid as it can possibly be
laid.

2. The towers must be projected beyond the line of wall, so that an
enemy wishing to approach the wall to carry it by assault may be exposed
to the fire of missiles on his open flank from the towers on his right
and left. Special pains should be taken that there be no easy avenue by
which to storm the wall. The roads should be encompassed at steep
points, and planned so as to approach the gates, not in a straight line,
but from the right to the left; for as a result of this, the right hand
side of the assailants, unprotected by their shields, will be next the
wall. Towns should be laid out not as an exact square nor with salient
angles, but in circular form, to give a view of the enemy from many
points. Defence is difficult where there are salient angles, because the
angle protects the enemy rather than the inhabitants.

3. The thickness of the wall should, in my opinion, be such that armed
men meeting on top of it may pass one another without interference. In
the thickness there should be set a very close succession of ties made
of charred olive wood, binding the two faces of the wall together like
pins, to give it lasting endurance. For that is a material which neither
decay, nor the weather, nor time can harm, but even though buried in the
earth or set in the water it keeps sound and useful forever. And so not
only city walls but substructures in general and all walls that require
a thickness like that of a city wall, will be long in falling to decay
if tied in this manner.

4. The towers should be set at intervals of not more than a bowshot
apart, so that in case of an assault upon any one of them, the enemy may
be repulsed with scorpiones and other means of hurling missiles from the
towers to the right and left. Opposite the inner side of every tower the
wall should be interrupted for a space the width of the tower, and have
only a wooden flooring across, leading to the interior of the tower but
not firmly nailed. This is to be cut away by the defenders in case the
enemy gets possession of any portion of the wall; and if the work is
quickly done, the enemy will not be able to make his way to the other
towers and the rest of the wall unless he is ready to face a fall.

5. The towers themselves must be either round or polygonal. Square
towers are sooner shattered by military engines, for the battering rams
pound their angles to pieces; but in the case of round towers they can
do no harm, being engaged, as it were, in driving wedges to their
centre. The system of fortification by wall and towers may be made
safest by the addition of earthen ramparts, for neither rams, nor
mining, nor other engineering devices can do them any harm.

[Illustration: CONSTRUCTION OF CITY WALLS

(From the edition of Vitruvius by Fra Giocondo, Venice, 1511)]

6. The rampart form of defence, however, is not required in all places,
but only where outside the wall there is high ground from which an
assault on the fortifications may be made over a level space lying
between. In places of this kind we must first make very wide, deep
ditches; next sink foundations for a wall in the bed of the ditch and
build them thick enough to support an earth-work with ease.

7. Then within this substructure lay a second foundation, far enough
inside the first to leave ample room for cohorts in line of battle to
take position on the broad top of the rampart for its defence. Having
laid these two foundations at this distance from one another, build
cross walls between them, uniting the outer and inner foundation, in a
comb-like arrangement, set like the teeth of a saw. With this form of
construction, the enormous burden of earth will be distributed into
small bodies, and will not lie with all its weight in one crushing mass
so as to thrust out the substructures.

8. With regard to the material of which the actual wall should be
constructed or finished, there can be no definite prescription, because
we cannot obtain in all places the supplies that we desire. Dimension
stone, flint, rubble, burnt or unburnt brick,--use them as you find
them. For it is not every neighbourhood or particular locality that can
have a wall built of burnt brick like that at Babylon, where there was
plenty of asphalt to take the place of lime and sand, and yet possibly
each may be provided with materials of equal usefulness so that out of
them a faultless wall may be built to last forever.

CHAPTER VI

THE DIRECTIONS OF THE STREETS; WITH REMARKS ON THE WINDS

1. The town being fortified, the next step is the apportionment of house
lots within the wall and the laying out of streets and alleys with
regard to climatic conditions. They will be properly laid out if
foresight is employed to exclude the winds from the alleys. Cold winds
are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy. We must,
therefore, avoid mistakes in this matter and beware of the common
experience of many communities. For example, Mytilene in the island of
Lesbos is a town built with magnificence and good taste, but its
position shows a lack of foresight. In that community when the wind is
south, the people fall ill; when it is northwest, it sets them coughing;
with a north wind they do indeed recover but cannot stand about in the
alleys and streets, owing to the severe cold.

2. Wind is a flowing wave of air, moving hither and thither
indefinitely. It is produced when heat meets moisture, the rush of heat
generating a mighty current of air. That this is the fact we may learn
from bronze eolipiles, and thus by means of a scientific invention
discover a divine truth lurking in the laws of the heavens. Eolipiles
are hollow bronze balls, with a very small opening through which water
is poured into them. Set before a fire, not a breath issues from them
before they get warm; but as soon as they begin to boil, out comes a
strong blast due to the fire. Thus from this slight and very short
experiment we may understand and judge of the mighty and wonderful laws
of the heavens and the nature of winds.

3. By shutting out the winds from our dwellings, therefore, we shall not
only make the place healthful for people who are well, but also in the
case of diseases due perhaps to unfavourable situations elsewhere, the
patients, who in other healthy places might be cured by a different form
of treatment, will here be more quickly cured by the mildness that comes
from the shutting out of the winds. The diseases which are hard to cure
in neighbourhoods such as those to which I have referred above are
catarrh, hoarseness, coughs, pleurisy, consumption, spitting of blood,
and all others that are cured not by lowering the system but by building
it up. They are hard to cure, first, because they are originally due to
chills; secondly, because the patient's system being already exhausted
by disease, the air there, which is in constant agitation owing to winds
and therefore deteriorated, takes all the sap of life out of their
diseased bodies and leaves them more meagre every day. On the other
hand, a mild, thick air, without draughts and not constantly blowing
back and forth, builds up their frames by its unwavering steadiness, and
so strengthens and restores people who are afflicted with these
diseases.

4. Some have held that there are only four winds: Solanus from due east;
Auster from the south; Favonius from due west; Septentrio from the
north. But more careful investigators tell us that there are eight.
Chief among such was Andronicus of Cyrrhus who in proof built the marble
octagonal tower in Athens. On the several sides of the octagon he
executed reliefs representing the several winds, each facing the point
from which it blows; and on top of the tower he set a conical shaped
piece of marble and on this a bronze Triton with a rod outstretched in
its right hand. It was so contrived as to go round with the wind, always
stopping to face the breeze and holding its rod as a pointer directly
over the representation of the wind that was blowing.

5. Thus Eurus is placed to the southeast between Solanus and Auster:
Africus to the southwest between Auster and Favonius; Caurus, or, as
many call it, Corus, between Favonius and Septentrio; and Aquilo between
Septentrio and Solanus. Such, then, appears to have been his device,
including the numbers and names of the wind and indicating the
directions from which particular winds blow. These facts being thus
determined, to find the directions and quarters of the winds your method
of procedure should be as follows.

6. In the middle of the city place a marble amussium, laying it true by
the level, or else let the spot be made so true by means of rule and
level that no amussium is necessary. In the very centre of that spot set
up a bronze gnomon or "shadow tracker" (in Greek [Greek: skiatheras]).
At about the fifth hour in the morning, take the end of the shadow cast
by this gnomon, and mark it with a point. Then, opening your compasses
to this point which marks the length of the gnomon's shadow, describe a
circle from the centre. In the afternoon watch the shadow of your gnomon
as it lengthens, and when it once more touches the circumference of
this circle and the shadow in the afternoon is equal in length to
that of the morning, mark it with a point.

[Illustration: THE TOWER OF THE WINDS AT ATHENS]

7. From these two points describe with your compasses intersecting arcs,
and through their intersection and the centre let a line be drawn to the
circumference of the circle to give us the quarters of south and north.
Then, using a sixteenth part of the entire circumference of the circle
as a diameter, describe a circle with its centre on the line to the
south, at the point where it crosses the circumference, and put points
to the right and left on the circumference on the south side, repeating
the process on the north side. From the four points thus obtained draw
lines intersecting the centre from one side of the circumference to the
other. Thus we shall have an eighth part of the circumference set out
for Auster and another for Septentrio. The rest of the entire
circumference is then to be divided into three equal parts on each side,
and thus we have designed a figure equally apportioned among the eight
winds. Then let the directions of your streets and alleys be laid down
on the lines of division between the quarters of two winds.

8. On this principle of arrangement the disagreeable force of the winds
will be shut out from dwellings and lines of houses. For if the streets
run full in the face of the winds, their constant blasts rushing in from
the open country, and then confined by narrow alleys, will sweep through
them with great violence. The lines of houses must therefore be directed
away from the quarters from which the winds blow, so that as they come
in they may strike against the angles of the blocks and their force thus
be broken and dispersed.

9. Those who know names for very many winds will perhaps be surprised at
our setting forth that there are only eight. Remembering, however, that
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, employing mathematical theories and geometrical
methods, discovered from the course of the sun, the shadows cast by an
equinoctial gnomon, and the inclination of the heaven that the
circumference of the earth is two hundred and fifty-two thousand stadia,
that is, thirty-one one million five hundred thousand paces, and
observing that an eighth part of this, occupied by a wind, is three
million nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred paces, they
should not be surprised to find that a single wind, ranging over so wide
a field, is subject to shifts this way and that, leading to a variety of
breezes.

10. So we often have Leuconotus and Altanus blowing respectively to the
right and left of Auster; Libonotus and Subvesperus to the right and
left of Africus; Argestes, and at certain periods the Etesiae, on either
side of Favonius; Circias and Corus on the sides of Caurus; Thracias and
Gallicus on either side of Septentrio; Supernas and Caecias to the right
and left of Aquilo; Carbas, and at a certain period the Ornithiae, on
either side of Solanus; while Eurocircias and Volturnus blow on the
flanks of Eurus which is between them. There are also many other names
for winds derived from localities or from the squalls which sweep from
rivers or down mountains.

11. Then, too, there are the breezes of early morning; for the sun on
emerging from beneath the earth strikes humid air as he returns, and as
he goes climbing up the sky he spreads it out before him, extracting
breezes from the vapour that was there before the dawn. Those that still
blow on after sunrise are classed with Eurus, and hence appears to come
the Greek name [Greek: euros] as the child of the breezes, and the word
for "to-morrow," [Greek: aurion], named from the early morning breezes.
Some people do indeed say that Eratosthenes could not have inferred the
true measure of the earth. Whether true or untrue, it cannot affect the
truth of what I have written on the fixing of the quarters from which
the different winds blow.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF THE WINDS (From the edition of Vitruvius by
Fra Giocondo, Venice, 1511)]

12. If he was wrong, the only result will be that the individual winds
may blow, not with the scope expected from his measurement, but with
powers either more or less widely extended. For the readier
understanding of these topics, since I have treated them with brevity,
it has seemed best to me to give two figures, or, as the Greeks say,
[Greek: schemata], at the end of this book: one designed to show the
precise quarters from which the winds arise; the other, how by turning
the directions of the rows of houses and the streets away from their
full force, we may avoid unhealthy blasts. Let A be the centre of a
plane surface, and B the point to which the shadow of the gnomon reaches
in the morning. Taking A as the centre, open the compasses to the point
B, which marks the shadow, and describe a circle. Put the gnomon back
where it was before and wait for the shadow to lessen and grow again
until in the afternoon it is equal to its length in the morning,
touching the circumference at the point C. Then from the points B and C
describe with the compasses two arcs intersecting at D. Next draw a line
from the point of intersection D through the centre of the circle to the
circumference and call it E F. This line will show where the south and
north lie.

[Illustration]

13. Then find with the compasses a sixteenth part of the entire
circumference; then centre the compasses on the point E where the line
to the south touches the circumference, and set off the points G and H
to the right and left of E. Likewise on the north side, centre the
compasses on the circumference at the point F on the line to the north,
and set off the points I and K to the right and left; then draw lines
through the centre from G to K and from H to I. Thus the space from G to
H will belong to Auster and the south, and the space from I to K will be
that of Septentrio. The rest of the circumference is to be divided
equally into three parts on the right and three on the left, those to
the east at the points L and M, those to the west at the points N and
O. Finally, intersecting lines are to be drawn from M to O and from L
to N. Thus we shall have the circumference divided into eight equal
spaces for the winds. The figure being finished, we shall have at the
eight different divisions, beginning at the south, the letter G between
Eurus and Auster, H between Auster and Africus, N between Africus and
Favonius, O between Favonius and Caurus, K between Caurus and
Septentrio, I between Septentrio and Aquilo, L between Aquilo and
Solanus, and M between Solanus and Eurus. This done, apply a gnomon to
these eight divisions and thus fix the directions of the different
alleys.

CHAPTER VII

THE SITES FOR PUBLIC BUILDINGS

1. Having laid out the alleys and determined the streets, we have next
to treat of the choice of building sites for temples, the forum, and all
other public places, with a view to general convenience and utility. If
the city is on the sea, we should choose ground close to the harbour as
the place where the forum is to be built; but if inland, in the middle
of the town. For the temples, the sites for those of the gods under
whose particular protection the state is thought to rest and for
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, should be on the very highest point
commanding a view of the greater part of the city. Mercury should be in
the forum, or, like Isis and Serapis, in the emporium: Apollo and Father
Bacchus near the theatre: Hercules at the circus in communities which
have no gymnasia nor amphitheatres; Mars outside the city but at the
training ground, and so Venus, but at the harbour. It is moreover shown
by the Etruscan diviners in treatises on their science that the fanes of
Venus, Vulcan, and Mars should be situated outside the walls, in order
that the young men and married women may not become habituated in the
city to the temptations incident to the worship of Venus, and that
buildings may be free from the terror of fires through the religious
rites and sacrifices which call the power of Vulcan beyond the walls.
As for Mars, when that divinity is enshrined outside the walls, the
citizens will never take up arms against each other, and he will defend
the city from its enemies and save it from danger in war.

2. Ceres also should be outside the city in a place to which people need
never go except for the purpose of sacrifice. That place should be under
the protection of religion, purity, and good morals. Proper sites should
be set apart for the precincts of the other gods according to the nature
of the sacrifices offered to them.

The principle governing the actual construction of temples and their
symmetry I shall explain in my third and fourth books. In the second I
have thought it best to give an account of the materials used in
buildings with their good qualities and advantages, and then in the
succeeding books to describe and explain the proportions of buildings,
their arrangements, and the different forms of symmetry.

BOOK II

INTRODUCTION

1. Dinocrates, an architect who was full of confidence in his own ideas
and skill, set out from Macedonia, in the reign of Alexander, to go to
the army, being eager to win the approbation of the king. He took with
him from his country letters from relatives and friends to the principal
military men and officers of the court, in order to gain access to them
more readily. Being politely received by them, he asked to be presented
to Alexander as soon as possible. They promised, but were rather slow,
waiting for a suitable opportunity. So Dinocrates, thinking that they
were playing with him, had recourse to his own efforts. He was of very
lofty stature and pleasing countenance, finely formed, and extremely
dignified. Trusting, therefore, to these natural gifts, he undressed
himself in his inn, anointed his body with oil, set a chaplet of poplar
leaves on his head, draped his left shoulder with a lion's skin, and
holding a club in his right hand stalked forth to a place in front of
the tribunal where the king was administering justice.

2. His strange appearance made the people turn round, and this led
Alexander to look at him. In astonishment he gave orders to make way for
him to draw near, and asked who he was. "Dinocrates," quoth he, "a
Macedonian architect, who brings thee ideas and designs worthy of thy
renown. I have made a design for the shaping of Mount Athos into the
statue of a man, in whose left hand I have represented a very spacious
fortified city, and in his right a bowl to receive the water of all the
streams which are in that mountain, so that it may pour from the bowl
into the sea."

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