Full text: Vitruvius: The architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, in ten books

remembered, and the nature of the triumph perpetuated, 
the victors represented them draped, and apparently suf- 
fering under the burthen with which they were loaded, 
to expiate the crime of their native city. Thus, in their 
edifices, did the antient architects, by the use of these 
statues, hand down to posterity a memorial of the crime 
of the Caryans. Again; a small number of Lacedae¬ 
monians, under the command of Pausanias, the son of 
Cleombrotus, overthrew the prodigious army of the Per¬ 
sians at the battle of Platea. After a triumphal exhibition 
of the spoil and booty, the proceeds of the valour and 
devotion of the victors were applied by the government 
in the erection of the Persian portico; and, as an appro¬ 
priate monument of the victory, and a trophy for the 
admiration of posterity, its roof was supported by statues 
of the barbarians, in their magnificent costume; indi¬ 
cating, at the same time, the merited contempt due to 
their haughty projects, intimidating their enemies by fear 
of their courage, and acting as a stimulus to their fellow 
countrymen to be always in readiness for the defence of 
the nation. This is the origin of the Persian order for the 
support of an entablature; an invention which has en¬ 
riched many a design with the singular variety it exhibits. 
Many other matters of history have a connexion with archi¬ 
tecture, and prove the necessity of its professors being 
well versed in it. Moral philosophy will teach the archi¬ 
tect to be above meanness in his dealings, and to avoid 
arrogance : it will make him just, compliant and faithful 
to his employer; and what is of the highest importance, 
it will prevent avarice gaining an ascendancy over him: 
for he should not be occupied with the thoughts of filling 
his coffers, nor with the desire of grasping every thing
	        
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