The Cruise of the Branwen

RAGUSA AND SPALATO house make up the finest inhabited relic of the Roman Empire in the world, in that stupendous architecture only possible to the Cresars or the Pharaohs, and never to be reproduced again. Like the coeval buildings at Palmyra and Baalbee, says l\1r. T. G. Jackson, the structures of Diocle– tian mark that departure from the old strict rules of antiquity which started the development of modern European styles, and shows, at Spalato, the beginnings of both Romanesque and Byzan– tine detail. The arch, for instance, may be seen here turning simply from column to column without an entablature at all, abandoning the last relic of the trabeated formations. The cor~ belling and arcading work visible above one of the most beautiful of the gateways, the Porta Aurea, is equally extraordinary when its date is considered. But it is, on the whole, the vast proportions and solid construction of this enormous building that are the most impressive things in it. There is very Iittle in the modern town that is not con- tained within the emperor's walls. The actual sea-front is his open-cloistered walk surmounting his high containing wall. The churches are his temples. The town Piazza is his peristyle, with columns of Cipollino and rose-coloured granite. The whole area of his constructions covers a space of about 700 feet by 570, with uniform walls, except that they do not rise as the shore rises inland, and are therefore 70 feet high by the sea and only 50 feet at the back. The most conspicuous object in Spalato from 163