ppeared, and on the other hand, amidst the well-nigh
total loss of the history of the non-Roman Italians, art is almost
the sole surviving index of the living activity which the different
peoples of the peninsula displayed. No novelty is to be reported in
this period; but what we have already shown(31) may be illustrated
in this period with greater precision and on a broader basis, namely,
that the stimulus derived from Greece powerfully affected the
Etruscans and Italians on different sides, and called forth among
the former a richer and more luxurious, among the latter--where it
had any influence at all--a more intelligent and more genuine, art.

Architecture--
Etruscan

We have already shown how wholly the architecture of all the Italian
lands was, even in its earliest period, pervaded by Hellenic elements.
Its city walls, its aqueducts, its tombs with pyramidal roofs, and its
Tuscanic temple, are not at all, or not materially, different from the
oldest Hellenic structures. No trace has been preserved of any advance
in architecture among the Etruscans during this period; we find among
them neither any really new reception, nor any original creation,
unless we ought to reckon as such the magnificent tombs, e. g. the
so-called tomb of Porsena at Chiusi described by Varro, which vividly
recalls the strange and meaningless grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids.

Latin--
The Arch

In Latium too, during the first century and a half of the republic,
it is probable that they moved solely in the previous track, and it
has already been stated that the exercise of art rather sank than rose
with the introduction of the republic.(32) There can scarcely be named
any Latin building of architectural importance belonging to this
period, except the temple of Ceres built in the Circus at Rome in 261,
which was regarded in the period of the empire as a model of the
Tuscanic style. But towards the close of this epoch a new spirit
appeared in Italian and particularly in Roman architecture;(33) the
building of the magnificent arches began. It is true that we are not
entitled to pronounce the arch and the vault Italian inventions.
It is well ascertained that at the epoch of the genesis of Hellenic
architecture the Hellenes were not yet acquainted with the arch, and
therefore had to content themselves with a flat ceiling and a sloping
roof for their temples; but the arch may very well have been a later
invention of the Hellenes orig