ABSTRACT
Rome gradually became the imperial mistress of the world. The Romans were as magnificent in their tombs as in all their other architectural works. The temples of the Romans were not like those of the Greeks, uniformly oblong; they were circular, hexagonal, octagonal, and even triangular, and combined of all these and many other forms. The most celebrated temple of a circular form is the Pantheon at Rome. In the interior of the Pantheon, the six chapels are decorated each with two Corinthian columns, and two pilasters, twenty-seven feet high, supporting an entablature which runs around the whole interior of the temple. The Forum of Trajan is mentioned by ancient historians as the wonder and glory of Roman Architecture; a perfect “miracle” in its gigantic splendour. Roman Architecture, which was never so classically pure as the Grecian, in time, degenerated into barbarous magnificence, overloaded with ornaments.
