A dictionary of Greek and Roman . alled rustic-work, in which the stonesare bevelled at their joints, the rest of their surfacesbeing generally left rough. This style of workoriginated, in the opinion of some, from the desireto save the trouble of smoothing the whole face ofthe stones ; but it is more probable that it wasadopted in order to give a bolder and firmer ap-pearance to the structure. Examples of it arefound in the remains of several Roman fortificationsin Germany, and in the substructions of the bridgeover the Moselle at Coblenz (Rhein. Mus. 1836,vol. iv. p. 310 ; Witz
A dictionary of Greek and Roman . alled rustic-work, in which the stonesare bevelled at their joints, the rest of their surfacesbeing generally left rough. This style of workoriginated, in the opinion of some, from the desireto save the trouble of smoothing the whole face ofthe stones ; but it is more probable that it wasadopted in order to give a bolder and firmer ap-pearance to the structure. Examples of it arefound in the remains of several Roman fortificationsin Germany, and in the substructions of the bridgeover the Moselle at Coblenz (Rhein. Mus. 1836,vol. iv. p. 310 ; Witzschel, in the class. Alterth. art. Muri). As by the Greeks,so by the Romans, walls of a commoner sort werebuilt of smaller quarried stones (caementa) or ofbricks. Vitruvius (ii. 8) and Pliny (H. N. s. 51) describe the following kinds of masonry,according to the mode in which the small stones(caementa) were put together. (The woodcut iscopied from the Abhildungen zu WinckelmanifsWerJce, Donaubschingen, 1835, fig. 10.). Besides the large square blocks of stone (0),they used smaller quadrangular stones arranged inregular courses of equal and of unequal heights;the former was called isodomum (M), the latterpseudisodomum (L); in another sort of work, calledemplecton (G), the outer faces of the walls onlywere of wrought stones, the intermediate _ partsbeing filled up with rough stones, but these, in theGreek method of construction, were well beddedin mortar, and arranged with overlapping joints,and the wall was bonded together with stones laidacross at intervals, which were called didrovoi (F);but the workmen of the time of Vitruvius were inthe habit, for the sake of despatch, of running upthe outer walls separately, and then filled themiddle space with loose rubbish, a sort of workwhich Pliny calls diamicton. The excellence ofthe cement which the Romans used enabled themto construct walls of very small rough stones, notlaid in courses, but held together by
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithwilliam18131893, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840
