Ten Books on Architecture | Page 9

second stage in Economy is reached when we have to plan the
different kinds of dwellings suitable for ordinary householders, for
great wealth, or for the high position of the statesman. A house in town
obviously calls for one form of construction; that into which stream the
products of country estates requires another; this will not be the same in
the case of money-lenders and still different for the opulent and
luxurious; for the powers under whose deliberations the commonwealth
is guided dwellings are to be provided according to their special needs:
and, in a word, the proper form of economy must be observed in
building houses for each and every class.
CHAPTER III
THE DEPARTMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE
1. There are three departments of architecture: the art of building, the
making of timepieces, and the construction of machinery. Building is,

in its turn, divided into two parts, of which the first is the construction
of fortified towns and of works for general use in public places, and the
second is the putting up of structures for private individuals. There are
three classes of public buildings: the first for defensive, the second for
religious, and the third for utilitarian purposes. Under defence comes
the planning of walls, towers, and gates, permanent devices for
resistance against hostile attacks; under religion, the erection of fanes
and temples to the immortal gods; under utility, the provision of
meeting places for public use, such as harbours, markets, colonnades,
baths, theatres, promenades, and all other similar arrangements in
public places.
2. All these must be built with due reference to durability, convenience,
and beauty. Durability will be assured when foundations are carried
down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected;
convenience, when the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and
presents no hindrance to use, and when each class of building is
assigned to its suitable and appropriate exposure; and beauty, when the
appearance of the work is pleasing and in good taste, and when its
members are in due proportion according to correct principles of
symmetry.
CHAPTER IV
THE SITE OF A CITY
1. For fortified towns the following general principles are to be
observed. First comes the choice of a very healthy site. Such a site will
be high, neither misty nor frosty, and in a climate neither hot nor cold,
but temperate; further, without marshes in the neighbourhood. For
when the morning breezes blow toward the town at sunrise, if they
bring with them mists from marshes and, mingled with the mist, the
poisonous breath of the creatures of the marshes to be wafted into the
bodies of the inhabitants, they will make the site unhealthy. Again, if
the town is on the coast with a southern or western exposure, it will not
be healthy, because in summer the southern sky grows hot at sunrise
and is fiery at noon, while a western exposure grows warm after sunrise,

is hot at noon, and at evening all aglow.
2. These variations in heat and the subsequent cooling off are harmful
to the people living on such sites. The same conclusion may be reached
in the case of inanimate things. For instance, nobody draws the light for
covered wine rooms from the south or west, but rather from the north,
since that quarter is never subject to change but is always constant and
unshifting. So it is with granaries: grain exposed to the sun's course
soon loses its good quality, and provisions and fruit, unless stored in a
place unexposed to the sun's course, do not keep long.
3. For heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of
resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with
its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its
glow. We see this in the case of iron which, however hard it may
naturally be, yet when heated thoroughly in a furnace fire can be easily
worked into any kind of shape, and still, if cooled while it is soft and
white hot, it hardens again with a mere dip into cold water and takes on
its former quality.
4. We may also recognize the truth of this from the fact that in summer
the heat makes everybody weak, not only in unhealthy but even in
healthy places, and that in winter even the most unhealthy districts are
much healthier because they are given a solidity by the cooling off.
Similarly, persons removed from cold countries to hot cannot endure it
but waste away; whereas those who pass from hot places to the cold
regions of the north, not only do not suffer in health from the change of
residence but even gain by it.
5. It appears, then, that in founding towns we must beware of districts