uctions and almost all are imitations of Greek works, but less
elegant and less delicate than the models. The most original
productions of this form of art are the bas-reliefs and the busts.

Bas-reliefs adorned the monuments (temples, columns, and triumphal
arches), tombs, and sarcophagi. They represent with scrupulous
fidelity real scenes, such as processions, sacrifices, combats, and
funeral ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The
bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius
bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may
see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their
fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and the
emperor haranguing the troops.

The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and
their children. As they were scattered in profusion throughout the
empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of
Europe have collections of imperial busts. They are real portraits,
probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had a well-marked
physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to
disguise.

In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality
than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned
with representing things beautifully than exactly.

Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of
the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome. We do not
know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close
resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple
and elegant grace.

=Architecture.=--The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a
practical need, is architecture. In this too the Romans imitated the
Greeks, borrowing the column from them. But they had a form that the
Greeks never employed--the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging
cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another.
The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied
than those of the Greeks. The following are the principal varieties of
Roman monuments:

1. The _Temple_ was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a
broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome. Of
this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus.

2. The _Basilica_ was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and
surrounded with port