Ancient town-planning / by F. Haverfield.

  • Haverfield, F. (Francis), 1860-1919.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ancient town-planning / by F. Haverfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    above the horizon on the dawn of some day important in the history of the town.1 1 he public buildings of these towns are in general somewhat small and arranged with little attempt at processional or architectural splendour; they seldom dominate or even cross the scheme of streets. Open spaces are rare ; the Forum, which corresponds to the Greek Agora, contains, like that, a paved open court, but this court is almost as much enclosed as the cloister of a mediaeval church or the quadrangle of a mediaeval college. Theatre and amphitheatre 2 might, no doubt, reach huge dimensions, but externally they were imre often massive than ornamental and the amphitheatre often stood outside the city walls. Here and there a triumphal arch spanned a road where it approached a town, and provided the only architectural vista to be seen in most of these Roman towns. Dimensions, of course, varied. There was no normal size for an infant town. Some, when first established, covered little more than 30 acres, the area of mediaeval Warwick. Others were four or five times as spacious ; they were twice or nearly twice as large as mediaeval Oxford, no mean city in thirteenth-century England. Most of them, doubtless, grew beyond their first lTmits ; a few spread as far as a square mile, twice the extent of mediaeval London. Similarly the ‘ insulae ' varied from town to town. In one,Timgad, they were only 70 to 80 ft. square. Often they measured 75 to 80 yds. square,rather 1 See on this point some remarks by W. Barthel, Bonner Jahrbiicher, cxx. ior-108. 12 In western Europe the provincial Roman amphitheatre averaged 45 X 70 yds. for its arena.