Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

770 MURUS.:MURUS.
Etruria, and in Central Italy, especially in the
valleys at the foot of the Apennines on their
western side, we find numerous remains of walls,
which are alike, inasmuch as they are composed
of immense blocks of stones put together without I A
cement of any kind, but which differ from one
another in the mode of their construction. Three
principal species can be clearly distinguished:-
1. That in which the masses of stone are of irregular shape and are put together without any
attempt to fit them into one another, the interstices being loosely filled in with smaller stones;
as in the walls of the citadel of Tiryns, a portion _l
of which is shown in the following engraving:-
1 11S. < \ _.
" WM structions will be found engraved in some of the
works presently referred to. We have only space
for these three characteristic specimens, one of each
class. Neither is it here possible, or at all necessary,
to discuss the opinions of ancient writers, most of
whom were content with the popular legend which
assigned these works to the Cyclopes, nor the
theories of modern scholars and antiquarians, who
(with some of the ancients) have generally referred. them to the Pelasgians. The principal conclusions
~;_-.2.h/- CNIU-+I-~ —-, ~ to which Mr. Bunbury has come, from a thorough
examination of the whole subject, may be safely
regarded as correct: namely, that while in such
Another specimen of the buildings at Tiryns, of works as the walls of Tiryns we have undoubtmuch more regular construction, may be seen at edly the earliest examples of mural architecture,
p. 125. it is quite a fallacy to lay down the general prin2. In other cases we find the blocks still of ir- ciple, that the unhewn, the polygonal, the more
regular polygonal shapes, but of a construction irregular and the more regular rectangular conwhich shows a considerable advance upon the structions, always indicate successive steps in the
former. The stones are no longer unhewn (&p-yol progress of the art; and that it is also erroneous to
AL'oL), but their sides are sufficiently smoothed to assign these works to any one people or to any one
make each fit accurately into the angles between period; that, while such massive -structures would
the others, and their faces are cut so as to give the of course be built by people comparatively ignorant
whole wall a tolerably smooth surface. Examples of the art of stone-cutting or of the tools proper for
of this sort of work are very common in Etruria. it, they might be and were also erected in later
The engraving is taken from the walls of Larissa times simply on account of their adaptation to their
in Argolis. purpose, and from the motive of saving unnecessary
labour; and that the difference between the polygonal and rectangular structures is generally to be
ascribed not to a difference in the skill of the
workmen, but to the different physical characters
of the materials they employed, - the one sort of
structure being usually of a species of limestone,
which easily splits into polygonal blocks, and the
other a sandstone, the natural cleavage of which
is horizontal. (Bunbury, Cyclopaean Remsains itn
Central Italy, in the Classical Museumzs, 1845, vol. ii.
pp. 147, &c.; Muller, Archiiol. d. Kunst, ~~45, ] 66,
3. In the third species, the blocks are laid in and the works there quoted Stioglitz, Archiol. d.
horizontal courses, more or less regular (sometimes Baukunst, vol. i. pp. 5-98; Hirt, Gesch. d. Bairindeed so irregular, thatrione of the horizontaljoints kunst, vol. i. pp. 195, &c., and plate vii. from which
are continuous), and with vertical joints either the foregoing cuts are taken; A/las zu KIgleer's
perpendicular or oblique, and with all the joints IKunstgeschlichte, Pt. ii. P1. 1; Gibttling in th.
more or less accurately fitted. The walls of My- Rhein. Alzus. 1843, vol. iv. pp. 321, 480, and in
cenae present one of the ruder examples of this the Archiiologisclze Zeitung, No. 26; Pompeii,
sort of structure; and the following engraving of vol. i. c. 4, with several woodcuts of walls; Abeken,
the " Lion Gate," of that fortress (so called from llittellten vor den Zeiten roinischers Herrschlff,
the rudely sculptured figures of lions) shows also a most important work, with numerous engravings
the manner in which the gates of these three spe- of walls). -
cies of walls were built, by supporting an immense The examples of the foregoing class lead us
block of stone, for the lintel, upon two others, for gradually to the regular mode of construction which
jambs, the latter inclining inwards, so as to give prevailed in Greece after the time of the Persian
more space than if they were upright. A very Wars, and which had been adopted in the walls
large number of interestin5, examples of these con. of temples much earlier. In the long walls -of