Ten Books on Architecture

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3. Alexander, delighted with the idea of his design, immediately
inquired whether there were any fields in the neighbourhood that could
maintain the city in corn. On finding that this was impossible without
transport from beyond the sea, "Dinocrates," quoth he, "I appreciate
your design as excellent in composition, and I am delighted with it, but
I apprehend that anybody who should found a city in that spot would be
censured for bad judgement. For as a newborn babe cannot be nourished
without the nurse's milk, nor conducted to the approaches that lead to
growth in life, so a city cannot thrive without fields and the fruits
thereof pouring into its walls, nor have a large population without
plenty of food, nor maintain its population without a supply of it.
Therefore, while thinking that your design is commendable, I consider
the site as not commendable; but I would have you stay with me, because
I mean to make use of your services."

4. From that time, Dinocrates did not leave the king, but followed him
into Egypt. There Alexander, observing a harbour rendered safe by
nature, an excellent centre for trade, cornfields throughout all Egypt,
and the great usefulness of the mighty river Nile, ordered him to build
the city of Alexandria, named after the king. This was how Dinocrates,
recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so
famous. But as for me, Emperor, nature has not given me stature, age has
marred my face, and my strength is impaired by ill health. Therefore,
since these advantages fail me, I shall win your approval, as I hope, by
the help of my knowledge and my writings.

5. In my first book, I have said what I had to say about the functions
of architecture and the scope of the art, as well as about fortified
towns and the apportionment of building sites within the fortifications.
Although it would next be in order to explain the proper proportions and
symmetry of temples and public buildings, as well as of private houses,
I thought best to postpone this until after I had treated the practical
merits of the materials out of which, when they are brought together,
buildings are constructed with due regard to the proper kind of material
for each part, and until I had shown of what natural elements those
materials are composed. But before beginning to explain their natural
properties, I will prefix the motives which originally gave rise to
buildings and the development of inventions in this field, following in
the steps of early nature and of those writers who have devoted
treatises to the origins of civilization and the investigation of
inventions. My exposition will, therefore, follow the instruction which
I have received from them.

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF THE DWELLING HOUSE

1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and
groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded
trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their
branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the
place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it
subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable
standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping
it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much
comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when
utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed
upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from
indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this
chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one
another.

2. Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to
the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social
intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers
into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other
animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but
upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also
in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and
fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. Some
made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some,
in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made
places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters
of others and adding new details to their own inceptions, they
constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on.

3. And since they were of an imitative and teachable nature, they would
daily point out to each other the results of their building, boasting of
the novelties in it; and thus, with their natural gifts sharpened by
emulation, their standards improved daily. At first they set up forked
stakes connected by twigs and covered these walls with mud. Others made
walls of lumps of dried mud, covering them with reeds and leaves to keep
out the rain and the heat. Finding that such roofs could not stand the
rain during the storms of winter, they built them with peaks daubed with
mud, the roofs sloping and projecting so as to carry off the rain water.

4. That houses originated as I have written above, we can see for
ourselves from the buildings that are to this day constructed of like
materials by foreign tribes: for instance, in Gaul, Spain, Portugal, and
Aquitaine, roofed with oak shingles or thatched. Among the Colchians in
Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees
flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a
space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these
another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right
angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling.
Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the
four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with
their walls of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build
up high towers. The interstices, which are left on account of the
thickness of the building material, are stopped up with chips and mud.
As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the crossbeams and making
them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring them up to
the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid. They cover it
with leaves and mud, and thus construct the roofs of their towers in a
rude form of the "tortoise" style.

5. On the other hand, the Phrygians, who live in an open country, have
no forests and consequently lack timber. They therefore select a natural
hillock, run a trench through the middle of it, dig passages, and extend
the interior space as widely as the site admits. Over it they build a
pyramidal roof of logs fastened together, and this they cover with reeds
and brushwood, heaping up very high mounds of earth above their
dwellings. Thus their fashion in houses makes their winters very warm
and their summers very cool. Some construct hovels with roofs of rushes
from the swamps. Among other nations, also, in some places there are
huts of the same or a similar method of construction. Likewise at
Marseilles we can see roofs without tiles, made of earth mixed with
straw. In Athens on the Areopagus there is to this day a relic of
antiquity with a mud roof. The hut of Romulus on the Capitol is a
significant reminder of the fashions of old times, and likewise the
thatched roofs of temples or the Citadel.

6. From such specimens we can draw our inferences with regard to the
devices used in the buildings of antiquity, and conclude that they were
similar.

Furthermore, as men made progress by becoming daily more expert in
building, and as their ingenuity was increased by their dexterity so
that from habit they attained to considerable skill, their intelligence
was enlarged by their industry until the more proficient adopted the
trade of carpenters. From these early beginnings, and from the fact that
nature had not only endowed the human race with senses like the rest of
the animals, but had also equipped their minds with the powers of
thought and understanding, thus putting all other animals under their
sway, they next gradually advanced from the construction of buildings to
the other arts and sciences, and so passed from a rude and barbarous
mode of life to civilization and refinement.

7. Then, taking courage and looking forward from the standpoint of
higher ideas born of the multiplication of the arts, they gave up huts
and began to build houses with foundations, having brick or stone
walls, and roofs of timber and tiles; next, observation and application
led them from fluctuating and indefinite conceptions to definite rules
of symmetry. Perceiving that nature had been lavish in the bestowal of
timber and bountiful in stores of building material, they treated this
like careful nurses, and thus developing the refinements of life,
embellished them with luxuries. Therefore I shall now treat, to the best
of my ability, of the things which are suitable to be used in buildings,
showing their qualities and their excellencies.

8. Some persons, however, may find fault with the position of this book,
thinking that it should have been placed first. I will therefore explain
the matter, lest it be thought that I have made a mistake. Being engaged
in writing a complete treatise on architecture, I resolved to set forth
in the first book the branches of learning and studies of which it
consists, to define its departments, and to show of what it is composed.
Hence I have there declared what the qualities of an architect should
be. In the first book, therefore, I have spoken of the function of the
art, but in this I shall discuss the use of the building materials which
nature provides. For this book does not show of what architecture is
composed, but treats of the origin of the building art, how it was
fostered, and how it made progress, step by step, until it reached its
present perfection.

9. This book is, therefore, in its proper order and place.

I will now return to my subject, and with regard to the materials suited
to the construction of buildings will consider their natural formation
and in what proportions their elementary constituents were combined,
making it all clear and not obscure to my readers. For there is no kind
of material, no body, and no thing that can be produced or conceived of,
which is not made up of elementary particles; and nature does not admit
of a truthful exploration in accordance with the doctrines of the
physicists without an accurate demonstration of the primary causes of
things, showing how and why they are as they are.

CHAPTER II

ON THE PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE ACCORDING TO THE PHYSICISTS

1. First of all Thales thought that water was the primordial substance
of all things. Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed by the Greeks [Greek:
skoteinos] on account of the obscurity of his writings, thought that it
was fire. Democritus and his follower Epicurus thought that it was the
atoms, termed by our writers "bodies that cannot be cut up," or, by
some, "indivisibles." The school of the Pythagoreans added air and the
earthy to the water and fire. Hence, although Democritus did not in a
strict sense name them, but spoke only of indivisible bodies, yet he
seems to have meant these same elements, because when taken by
themselves they cannot be harmed, nor are they susceptible of
dissolution, nor can they be cut up into parts, but throughout time
eternal they forever retain an infinite solidity.

2. All things therefore appear to be made up and produced by the coming
together of these elements, so that they have been distributed by nature
among an infinite number of kinds of things. Hence I believed it right
to treat of the diversity and practical peculiarities of these things as
well as of the qualities which they exhibit in buildings, so that
persons who are intending to build may understand them and so make no
mistake, but may gather materials which are suitable to use in their
buildings.

CHAPTER III

BRICK

1. Beginning with bricks, I shall state of what kind of clay they ought
to be made. They should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine
gravel, because when made of these kinds they are in the first place
heavy; and, secondly, when washed by the rain as they stand in walls,
they go to pieces and break up, and the straw in them does not hold
together on account of the roughness of the material. They should rather
be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained
gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they
are not heavy to work with, and are readily laid.

2. Bricks should be made in Spring or Autumn, so that they may dry
uniformly. Those made in Summer are defective, because the fierce heat
of the sun bakes their surface and makes the brick seem dry while inside
it is not dry. And so the shrinking, which follows as they dry, causes
cracks in the parts which were dried before, and these cracks make the
bricks weak. Bricks will be most serviceable if made two years before
using; for they cannot dry thoroughly in less time. When fresh undried
bricks are used in a wall, the stucco covering stiffens and hardens into
a permanent mass, but the bricks settle and cannot keep the same height
as the stucco; the motion caused by their shrinking prevents them from
adhering to it, and they are separated from their union with it. Hence
the stucco, no longer joined to the core of the wall, cannot stand by
itself because it is so thin; it breaks off, and the walls themselves
may perhaps be ruined by their settling. This is so true that at Utica
in constructing walls they use brick only if it is dry and made five
years previously, and approved as such by the authority of a magistrate.

3. There are three kinds of bricks. First, the kind called in Greek
Lydian, being that which our people use, a foot and a half long and one
foot wide. The other two kinds are used by the Greeks in their
buildings. Of these, one is called [Greek: pentadoron], the other
[Greek: tetradoron]. [Greek: Doron] is the Greek for "palm," for in
Greek [Greek: doron] means the giving of gifts, and the gift is always
presented in the palm of the hand. A brick five palms square is called
"pentadoron"; one four palms square "tetradoron." Public buildings are
constructed of [Greek: pentadora], private of [Greek: tetradora].

4. With these bricks there are also half-bricks. When these are used in
a wall, a course of bricks is laid on one face and a course of
half-bricks on the other, and they are bedded to the line on each face.
The walls are bonded by alternate courses of the two different kinds,
and as the bricks are always laid so as to break joints, this lends
strength and a not unattractive appearance to both sides of such walls.

[Illustration: VITRUVIUS' BRICK-BOND ACCORDING TO REBER]

In the states of Maxilua and Callet, in Further Spain, as well as in
Pitane in Asia Minor, there are bricks which, when finished and dried,
will float on being thrown into water. The reason why they can float
seems to be that the clay of which they are made is like pumice-stone.
So it is light, and also it does not, after being hardened by exposure
to the air, take up or absorb liquid. So these bricks, being of this
light and porous quality, and admitting no moisture into their texture,
must by the laws of nature float in water, like pumice, no matter what
their weight may be. They have therefore great advantages; for they are
not heavy to use in building and, once made, they are not spoiled by bad
weather.

CHAPTER IV

SAND

1. In walls of masonry the first question must be with regard to the
sand, in order that it may be fit to mix into mortar and have no dirt in
it. The kinds of pitsand are these: black, gray, red, and carbuncular.
Of these the best will be found to be that which crackles when rubbed in
the hand, while that which has much dirt in it will not be sharp enough.
Again: throw some sand upon a white garment and then shake it out; if
the garment is not soiled and no dirt adheres to it, the sand is
suitable.

2. But if there are no sandpits from which it can be dug, then we must
sift it out from river beds or from gravel or even from the sea beach.
This kind, however, has these defects when used in masonry: it dries
slowly; the wall cannot be built up without interruption but from time
to time there must be pauses in the work; and such a wall cannot carry
vaultings. Furthermore, when sea-sand is used in walls and these are
coated with stucco, a salty efflorescence is given out which spoils the
surface.

3. But pitsand used in masonry dries quickly, the stucco coating is
permanent, and the walls can support vaultings. I am speaking of sand
fresh from the sandpits. For if it lies unused too long after being
taken out, it is disintegrated by exposure to sun, moon, or hoar frost,
and becomes earthy. So when mixed in masonry, it has no binding power on
the rubble, which consequently settles and down comes the load which the
walls can no longer support. Fresh pitsand, however, in spite of all its
excellence in concrete structures, is not equally useful in stucco, the
richness of which, when the lime and straw are mixed with such sand,
will cause it to crack as it dries on account of the great strength of
the mixture. But river sand, though useless in "signinum" on account of
its thinness, becomes perfectly solid in stucco when thoroughly worked
by means of polishing instruments.

CHAPTER V

LIME

1. Sand and its sources having been thus treated, next with regard to
lime we must be careful that it is burned from a stone which, whether
soft or hard, is in any case white. Lime made of close-grained stone of
the harder sort will be good in structural parts; lime of porous stone,
in stucco. After slaking it, mix your mortar, if using pitsand, in the
proportions of three parts of sand to one of lime; if using river or
sea-sand, mix two parts of sand with one of lime. These will be the
right proportions for the composition of the mixture. Further, in using
river or sea-sand, the addition of a third part composed of burnt brick,
pounded up and sifted, will make your mortar of a better composition to
use.

2. The reason why lime makes a solid structure on being combined with
water and sand seems to be this: that rocks, like all other bodies, are
composed of the four elements. Those which contain a larger proportion
of air, are soft; of water, are tough from the moisture; of earth, hard;
and of fire, more brittle. Therefore, if limestone, without being
burned, is merely pounded up small and then mixed with sand and so put
into the work, the mass does not solidify nor can it hold together. But
if the stone is first thrown into the kiln, it loses its former property
of solidity by exposure to the great heat of the fire, and so with its
strength burnt out and exhausted it is left with its pores open and
empty. Hence, the moisture and air in the body of the stone being burned
out and set free, and only a residuum of heat being left lying in it, if
the stone is then immersed in water, the moisture, before the water can
feel the influence of the fire, makes its way into the open pores; then
the stone begins to get hot, and finally, after it cools off, the heat
is rejected from the body of the lime.

3. Consequently, limestone when taken out of the kiln cannot be as heavy
as when it was thrown in, but on being weighed, though its bulk remains
the same as before, it is found to have lost about a third of its weight
owing to the boiling out of the water. Therefore, its pores being thus
opened and its texture rendered loose, it readily mixes with sand, and
hence the two materials cohere as they dry, unite with the rubble, and
make a solid structure.

CHAPTER VI

POZZOLANA

1. There is also a kind of powder which from natural causes produces
astonishing results. It is found in the neighbourhood of Baiae and in
the country belonging to the towns round about Mt. Vesuvius. This
substance, when mixed with lime and rubble, not only lends strength to
buildings of other kinds, but even when piers of it are constructed in
the sea, they set hard under water. The reason for this seems to be that
the soil on the slopes of the mountains in these neighbourhoods is hot
and full of hot springs. This would not be so unless the mountains had
beneath them huge fires of burning sulphur or alum or asphalt. So the
fire and the heat of the flames, coming up hot from far within through
the fissures, make the soil there light, and the tufa found there is
spongy and free from moisture. Hence, when the three substances, all
formed on a similar principle by the force of fire, are mixed together,
the water suddenly taken in makes them cohere, and the moisture quickly
hardens them so that they set into a mass which neither the waves nor
the force of the water can dissolve.

2. That there is burning heat in these regions may be proved by the
further fact that in the mountains near Baiae, which belongs to the
Cumaeans, there are places excavated to serve as sweating-baths, where
the intense heat that comes from far below bores its way through the
earth, owing to the force of the fire, and passing up appears in these
regions, thus making remarkably good sweating-baths. Likewise also it is
related that in ancient times the tides of heat, swelling and
overflowing from under Mt. Vesuvius, vomited forth fire from the
mountain upon the neighbouring country. Hence, what is called
"sponge-stone" or "Pompeian pumice" appears to have been reduced by
burning from another kind of stone to the condition of the kind which we
see.

3. The kind of sponge-stone taken from this region is not produced
everywhere else, but only about Aetna and among the hills of Mysia which
the Greeks call the "Burnt District," and in other places of the same
peculiar nature. Seeing that in such places there are found hot springs
and warm vapour in excavations on the mountains, and that the ancients
tell us that there were once fires spreading over the fields in those
very regions, it seems to be certain that moisture has been extracted
from the tufa and earth, by the force of fire, just as it is from
limestone in kilns.

4. Therefore, when different and unlike things have been subjected to
the action of fire and thus reduced to the same condition, if after
this, while in a warm, dry state, they are suddenly saturated with
water, there is an effervescence of the heat latent in the bodies of
them all, and this makes them firmly unite and quickly assume the
property of one solid mass.

There will still be the question why Tuscany, although it abounds in hot
springs, does not furnish a powder out of which, on the same principle,
a wall can be made which will set fast under water. I have therefore
thought best to explain how this seems to be, before the question should
be raised.

5. The same kinds of soil are not found in all places and countries
alike, nor is stone found everywhere. Some soils are earthy; others
gravelly, and again pebbly; in other places the material is sandy; in a
word, the properties of the soil are as different and unlike as are the
various countries. In particular, it may be observed that sandpits are
hardly ever lacking in any place within the districts of Italy and
Tuscany which are bounded by the Apennines; whereas across the Apennines
toward the Adriatic none are found, and in Achaea and Asia Minor or, in
short, across the sea, the very term is unknown. Hence it is not in all
the places where boiling springs of hot water abound, that there is the
same combination of favourable circumstances which has been described
above. For things are produced in accordance with the will of nature;
not to suit man's pleasure, but as it were by a chance distribution.

6. Therefore, where the mountains are not earthy but consist of soft
stone, the force of the fire, passing through the fissures in the stone,
sets it afire. The soft and delicate part is burned out, while the hard
part is left. Consequently, while in Campania the burning of the earth
makes ashes, in Tuscany the combustion of the stone makes carbuncular
sand. Both are excellent in walls, but one is better to use for
buildings on land, the other for piers under salt water. The Tuscan
stone is softer in quality than tufa but harder than earth, and being
thoroughly kindled by the violent heat from below, the result is the
production in some places of the kind of sand called carbuncular.

[Illustration: TRAVERTINE QUARRIES ON THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

1. 2. Ancient quarries. 3. A similar modern quarry.

The top of the rock shows the original ground level. The present ground
level shows the depth to which the rock has been removed.]

CHAPTER VII

STONE

1. I have now spoken of lime and sand, with their varieties and points
of excellence. Next comes the consideration of stone-quarries from which
dimension stone and supplies of rubble to be used in building are taken
and brought together. The stone in quarries is found to be of different
and unlike qualities. In some it is soft: for example, in the environs
of the city at the quarries of Grotta Rossa, Palla, Fidenae, and of the
Alban hills; in others, it is medium, as at Tivoli, at Amiternum, or Mt.
Soracte, and in quarries of this sort; in still others it is hard, as in
lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in
Campania, red and black tufas; in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white
tufa which can be cut with a toothed saw, like wood.

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