The first link of the chain which connects the Roman Colleges of Artificers with the building corporations of the Middle Ages, is found in the dispersion and settlement of the former in the conquered colonies of Rome. It has been satisfactorily shown that the Masons at Rome were incorporated into colleges, where the principles of their art were diligently studied and taught to younger members who stood for that purpose in the place occupied by the Apprentices in the Stonemasons' lodges at a long subsequent period. We have seen that animmunity from all public services was granted by the Emperor Constantine to workmen, and among others to architects for the express reason that they might have the opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of their professions and of imparting it to their disciples. Now, these architects, one of whom was always appointed to a legion with workmen from the colleges under him, carried the skill which they had been enabled to acquire at home, with them into the colonies or provinces which they visited, and there, if they remained long enough, which was usually the case, as the legions were for the most part stationed for long periods, they erected, besides the military defenses constructed for the safety of the army, and the roads which they opened for its convenience, more permanent edifices, such as temples. Of this we have abundant evidence in the ruins which still remain of some of these structures, ruins so dilapidated as to supply us with only meager and yet sufficient evidence of their former existence and even splendor, but more especially in the numerous inscriptions on stone or marble tablets, hundreds of which, in every province, have been collected by Gruter, Muratori, Reinesius and other writers who have devoted themselves to the study of Roman antiquities. Thus we shall find in Spain, in Gaul, and in Britain abundant evidences, of the kind referred to, of these labors of the Roman architects, while these provinces were under Roman domination.

It can not be denied that this must have exercised a certain influence on the original inhabitants and have introduced a more refined taste and a superior skill in the art of building. Nor was the influence thus exerted of an altogether ephemeral nature. When the Roman domination ceased, and the legions were withdrawn to sustain the feeble powers of a decaying empire, threatened by the barbarian hordes of the north with extinction, not all the Romans who had come with the legions, or since their advent immigrated into the country, left with them. A very long series of years had passed, and many of these architects and builders had been naturalized, as it were, and were unwilling to depart from the homes which they had made. They remained, and continued to perpetuate among the people with whom they were domiciliated the skill and the usages which they had originally brought from Rome. M. Viollet-le-Duc says, in his Dictionary of Architecture, * that in the Middle Ages the workmen of the southern cities of Europe preserved the Roman traditions, and that in them the corporations or colleges did not cease to exist, but that these bodies were not established in the northern cities until the time of the affranchisement of the communes. Even if this were the fact, it would only be lengthening the chain of connection, for it is fair to suppose that the corporations of the north, at whatever later period they were established, must have adored the system of confraternities from the southern cities where they had long existed as a part of the Roman tradition. So that even in this view the chain is uninterrupted which binds the corporations of builders of the Middle Ages with those of Rome. But I think that it will hereafter be shown to be historically true that the traditions and the usages of the Roman colleges were well preserved in the early period of English architecture, and that out of these traditions sprang, in part, the regulations of the Saxon guilds. But this is a question

(* "Dictionnaire Raisonne de lArchitecture de XI me au XVI me siecle," tome vi., p. 346)

for future consideration when we come to the investigation of the post-Roman architecture of Gaul and England. The evidences of the influence of the Roman colleges on the province of Spain are very abundant, arising from the peculiar relations of that province to the Empire. Upon the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Spain, which occurred 206 B.C., it was erected into a Roman province, at least so much as had been conquered by the Romans under the Scipios, which did not include more than half of the peninsular. Thenceforward it was governed sometimes by one proctor and sometimes by two, and two legions were always kept stationary in the province. The influence of this political arrangement was of the most important character. The soldiers intermarried with the native- women, and thus became so estranged from Italy that when the legions were disbanded. Many of them refused to return home, and continued their residence in Spain. *

(* Niebuhr, "Lectures on Roman History," ii., p. 208)

A little more than a century after its conquest, such a system of internal communication had been established by the opening of roads and especially the military one of Pompey over the Pyrences, that the country was laid open to travelers, many of whom settled there. In the time of Strabo, a portion of the province had been so Romanized in manners as to have become almost Roman. The great privilege of citizenship had been granted to many of the inhabitants, and they had even forgotten their native language. Spain, thus becoming more intimately connected with the Empire than any of the other provinces, furnished, as it is well known, some distinguished names to Latin literature, such as Lucanus, the poet, the older and the younger Seneca, Columelle, Quintilian, and the epigrammatist, Martial.

In the reign of Augustus many considerable colonies were founded, represented by the modern cities of Zaragossa, Merida, Badajoz, and many others. In these cities the art of building flourished, and they were adorned with some of the finest productions of Roman architecture, of many of which the magnificent ruins still remain, while temples, theaters, baths, circuses, and other public edifices, which had been erected by the Roman masons, have perished through the waste of time and the destructive influences of invasions and intestine wars. It is well known that while Spain was, from the earliest times, an object of the grasping ambition of foreign peoples, and that it was in turns invaded and conquered by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, and the Arabs, all of whom were attracted by the delights of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and the richness of the mines, the Romans, from the longer duration of their domination and from the more solid character of the edifices which they constructed, have left a greater number of architectural monuments, and these in a greater state of preservation, than the other nations who preceded or followed them. *

(* Don Caen-Bermudez, "Sumario de las Antiguedades Romanas que hay in Espana," Madrid, 1852, p. 2)

But the invasion of the Goths, after the departure of the Romans, and the subsequent more permanent occupation of the peninsular by the Saracenic Arabs or Moors, so completely withdrew the architects of Spain from all communication with those of the rest of Europe, and so completely obliterated all effects of the earlier Roman influence, that it is impossible to trace a continued and uninterrupted connection between the Roman Colleges of Masons, who left behind such wonderful evidences of their skill, and the medaevel guilds or corporations of the Middle Ages, who in other countries were their successors. It is a curious historical fact that while of all the Boman provinces Spain was the one in which the Roman domination was most firmly, established, it was also the one in which, after the decay of the Empire, all the results of that domination were the most thoroughly obliterated. Spain has, therefore, been alluded to on the present occasion not with any intention of making it a part of that train of succession which, beginning with the colleges of Numa, ended in the mediaeval guilds of Stonemasons, but because it furnishes a very complete instance of how these Roman Colleges of Artificers extended their labors and introduced their art into foreign countries. In the three other provinces of the western empire, the two Gauls and Britain, the connection of the Roman colleges with the guilds or corporations which subsequently sprang up may be more readily traced.

Cisalpine or Citerior Gaul was the name given by the classical writers to that part of Gallia which was south of the alpine mountains, and which constituted what is more familiarly known as northern Italy. Deriving its first settlement, if we may trust to the authority of Livy, which, however, Niebuhr rejects, by an immigration of the Gauls beyond the mountains, in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, these people were for centuries engaged in struggles with the Romans, whose attempts to subdue them were always unsuccessful. When Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, invaded Italy and sought the destruction of Rome and the Roman power, many of them willingly became his allies. But about two hundred years before the Christian era, the two most important tribes, the Insubrians and the Boians, were subdued by the Roman legions under the Consuls C. Cornelius Cethegus and Q. Minucius Rufus, and from that time to the reign of Augustus, Cisalpine Gaul came slowly but surely under the Roman domination. When it was established as a Roman province, it was rapidly filled with a Roman population, and became one of the most valuable of the Roman possessions.

Most of the towns received that political status known as the Jus Latii, or the Latinitas, by which they were placed in a middle position between strangers and the Roman citizens, and the pure right of citizenship was bestowed on their magistrates, which was, in the time of Caesar, extended to all the inhabitants, the larger towns being made municipalities. Fifty years before Christ all Cisalpine Gaul had been invested with the right of citizenship, and consisted of Roman communities organized after the Roman fashion. This would necessarily indicate the introduction among the peace of Roman civilization and refinement. Among the arts that were encouraged, that of architecture was not the least, and we have ample evidence in still remaining monuments and in inscriptions that the Roman architects or members of the colleges were industriously employed in the labors of their Craft.

The proofs of this are to be found in the modern cities of northern Italy, which are the successors of the Cisalpine colonies, and which have preserved in their museums or in private collections the memorials and relics of their ancient prosperity and refinement. Thus Mutina, now the modern Modena, was one of the most flourishing of the Lombard towns. Ciccro did not hesitate to call it "the strongest and most splendid colony of the Roman people." It was so wealthy as to have been able to support for a long time the large army of Brutus. It fell at length into decay, but was never abandoned, and again rose to prosperity in the Middle Ages under the name of Modena by which it is still known. Although the magnificent architectural remains of the ancient city were employed in the construction of the cathedral and other public buildings of the modern one, or were buried under the depositions of alluvial soil, yet the Museum of Modena contains a valuable collection of sarcophagi and of inscriptions which have been excavated at various times and which furnish the evidence of the existence and the labors of the Roman architects and builders under the empire.

There was another town of Cisalpine Gaul, called Aquileia, which was built by the Romans to defend the fertile plains of Italy on the northeast from the incursions of barbarians. Two centuries before Christ it was settled by several thousand colonists from Rome and became a place of great commercial prosperity. In the 5th century it was plundered and burnt by Attila, King of the Huns; but though it never again became a place of importance, it was always inhabited, and in the 6th century was the See of a bishop, and, to borrow the language of Mr. Bunbury, * "It maintained a. sickly existence throughout the Middle Ages." At the present day it is an obscure village, with only a cathedral. Although it contains no vestiges of Roman edifices, the site, says the same writer, it abounds with remains of antiquity, coins, engraved stones, and other minor objects as well as shads and capitals of columns, fragments of frieze, etc., the splendor and beauty of which sufficiently attest the magnificence of the ancient city." Among the inscriptions found there arc some which relate to the temple and the worship of Belenus, a local sun-god whom the Romans identified with Apollo. All the works of which we have these memorials must have been effected by the Roman architects, who, with their colleges, were surely among the six or seven thousand who emigrated from Rome and built up the city. Bononia, or the modern Bologna, was built, it is supposed, by the Tuscans, and was raised to the rank of a Roman colony about two centuries before Christ. It continued to be an important and

(* Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.")

flourishing city under the empire. Though it suffered decay, it was able, in the 5th century, to withstand successfully the attacks of Alaric. It never lost the continuity of its existence, but after the fall of the empire regained, in a great measure, its prosperity, and at length assumed, in the Middle Ages, a preeminence among the cities of northern Italy which it still retains. It is not probable that it had soon lost as traditions of those arts which it practiced when a Roman colony, and which are attested by fragments of sculpture and traditions which have been preserved. The modern city of Ivrea, which is an important place, was the ancient Eporedia, a Roman colony founded about one hundred years before Christ. The strength of its position, as commanding two important passes of the Alps, gave it great military value, and it does not, therefore, appear to have been subjected to any great process of decay. As late as the close of the 4th century it was a considerable town and occupied, as a military station, by a portion of a legion. The modern city still contains a fine Roman sarcophagus and some other remains of its ancient splendor. But the most interesting of all the cities of Cisalpine Gaul, in a reference to the connection of the Roman colleges, which labored in them, with the sodalities of the Middle Ages which succeeded them, is Comum, an important city at the foot of the Alps and on the borders of the Lake of Como.

The present name of the city is como. It is supposed to have been the birthplace of both the elder and the younger Pliny, the latter of whom made it his favorite residence, and established in it a school of learning. It was under the empire a flourishing municipality, and its prosperity was secured by the beauty and convenience of its position at the extremity of the lake, for it became the point of embarkation for travelers who were proceeding to cross the Rhactian Alps. It retained its prosperity to the close of the Roman Empire. In the 4th century a fleet was stationed there for the protection of the lake. Cassiodorus speaks of it in the 6th century as one of the military bulwarks of Italy, and extols the richness of the palaces with which the shores of the lake in its vicinity were adorned. It continued to retain its importance in the Middle Ages, and it is from there that the "Masters of Como," the Traveling Freemasons, proceeded to traverse Europe in the 10th century, and to erect cathedrals, monasteries, and palaces in the various countries which they visited. But this body, whose acts form the most valuable portion of the historical testimony of the connection between the Roman Colleges of Artificers and the corporations of Freemasons in the Middle Ages, will be hereafter discussed and described in a more extended manner For the present, this simple allusion to them must suffice We next come to the consideration of the architectural condition of Transalpine Gaul, or Gaul proper, under the Roman domination.

This subject may be briefly discussed, as the early condition of Roman architecture in Gaul will be more diffusely treated in a subsequent chapter. The name of Transalpine Gaul was given by the Romans to that country which extended from the Pyrenean mountains to the river Rhine, within which limits modern France is embraced. It was first conquered by the Roman arms under Julius Caesar, and remained a province of the empire until its final decline. The Gauls represented to have been a ferocious and sanguinary people, though at the time of the conquest Caesar found an improvement in the manners of some of the tribes. But their progress toward civilization and refinement was rapid after they came under the dominion of the Romans. Caesar had formed a legion of Gaulish soldiers whom he armed and drilled after the Roman fashion, and subsequently when he had arrived at the Dictatorship he made them Roman citizens, and sent Roman colonies to several of the cities. Under the Emperor Augustus, Gaul became rapidly Romanized. Schools were established in the large towns, and the Latin language and the Roman law were adopted. In religion there was a compromise and there was a mixture of Gallic and Roman worship, though wherever the Romans made a permanent settlement, temples were erected to the Roman deities. Architectural works were pursued with great energy but with little prudence.

Temples and other public buildings, together with bridge, roads and aqueducts, were erected over all the country. These must have cost immense sums, and as the expansion was wholly defrayed by the inhabitants without aid from the mother government, great distress began to prevail among the people, which led to several mutinies. But though the embellishments of the Roman architects had impoverished the colonists, the influences of refinement in art continued long after these troubles to prevail, and in Gaul we find an almost uninterrupted connection between the architecture of the Roman colleges and that of the mediaeval Freemasons. That part of Gaul which lay along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and which the Romans emphatically called the Province (Provincia), had been civilized and Romanized long before the conquest of the other parts of the country. It was in the towns of this province that the most extensive operations in architecture were exhibited. It must be remarked however, that all over Gaul outside of the Provincia, as well as within it, there are ample evidences of the splendid style of architecture that was cultivated by the architects who accompanied the legions, or the colonists who went from Rome to settle in Gaulish towns. Baeterrae, now Beziers received a colony of soldiers of the seventh legion, who constructed a causeway, of which some traces still exist. There are also the vestiges of an amphitheater and the remains of an aqueduct. Arelate, now known as Arles, was a city of the Provincia.

The Roman remains are very numerous there; among them an obelisk of Egyptian granite which was excavated some centuries ago, and in 1675 was set up in one of the public squares. The amphitheater was estimated as capable of holding twenty thousand persons. There is also an old cemetery which contains many ancient tombs, both Pagan and Christian. Nemausus, the modern Nimes, which was also a city of the Provincia, contains many remains of the skill of the old Roman architects and the splendor of their works. The amphitheater, not quite as large as that of Arles, is in a good state of preservation. There is also a temple still existing which, as Arthur Young says, in his Travels in France is beyond comparison the most light, elegant, and pleasing building that he ever beheld. Under the modern name of "Maison Carree" it is now used as a museum of painting and antiquities. But the noblest monument that the Romans have left in Gaul is the aqueduct now called the Pont du Gard, which is between three and four leagues from Nimes. The bridge on which the aqueduct is laid is still solid and strong, and in says Mr. George Long, "a magnificent monument of the grandeur of Roman conceptions, and of the boldness of their execution." It is useless to extend these descriptions farther. All over Gaul were cities colonized by the Romans, who imparted to the native inhabitants a portion of their skill, their taste, and their refinement. Temples, amphitheaters, theaters, aqueducts, and public and private buildings of every kind are to be found in all the large and many of the small cities of modern France, which, sometimes well preserved and sometimes in ruins, always indicate that the spirit of architectural-enterprise was imparted to the people under the Roma government and by Roman architects and builders.

How well that spirit was preserved and how it became afterward developed in the Freemasonry of the Middle Ages will remain to be elucidated in our further historical researches. Britain was twice invaded by Caesar, but on neither occasion did he stay long enough in the island to effect any influence on the inhabitants. Augustus afterward planned an expedition to Britain, but the plan was never consummated. It was not until the time of Claudius that any serious attempt at conquest was made. Under his orders an army was led by Aulus Plautus into the southeastern part of the island. The city of Camalodunum, now Malden, was taken. Claudius, who had visited Britain to partake of the triumphs of the victory, returned to Rome and assumed the surname of Britannicus in attestation of his success, leaving his general, Plautus, to complete the conquest, which, however, he did not accomplish. Vespasian soon after subdued the Isle of Wight and took twenty of the oppida or British towns. His son Titus also distinguished himself in many battles with the native tribes. But though the island was at this time penetrated to some extent by the Roman legions, and the southern coasts were occupied by them, the island was not yet conquered. The struggle between the independent spirit of the natives and the ambitious designs of their Roman invaders lasted for nearly half a century, and the subjection of the whole island was not achieved until the reign of Domican. Thereafter Britain took the form and felt all the influences of a Roman province, but unlike Spain and Gaul, a discontented one. It is hardly germane to the objects of the present work to trace, with any particularity of detail, the progress of the Roman power under the various emperors who governed the island from the date of its conquest to the final withdrawal of the Roman armies in the beginning of the 5th century. It is sufficient to say that during the period of time intervening between these two epoches, Britain had become completely Romanized.

Colonies were founded, cities possessing the right of Roman citizenship were established, legions were distributed in various places, veteran soldiers and immigrants from the imperial city had made permanent settlements, so that, as Gildas says, it was to be viewed not as a British but as a Roman island. "Britain," says Sharon Turner, "was not now in the state in which the Romans had found it. Its towns were no longer barricaded forests, nor its houses wood cabins covered with straw, nor its inhabitants naked savages with painted bodies or clothed with skins. It had been, for above three centuries, the seat of Roman civilization and luxury. Roman emperors had been born and others had reigned in it. The natives had been ambitious to obtain and hence had not only built houses, temples, courts, and market-places in their towns, but had adorned them with porticoes, galleries, baths, and saloons, and with mosaic pavements, and emulated every Roman improvement. They had distinguished themselves as legal advocates and orators and for their study of the Roman poets. Their cities had been made images of Rome itself, and the natives had become Romans." *

(* Dr. William Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.")

It can not be doubted that the skill and experience of the Roman architects who accompanied the legions or who came from Rome to Britain after its conquest had been imparted to the native Britons, and that the chain of connection between the Roman colleges and the local Colleges of Artificers in the island was well established. Of this, numerous inscriptions and the remains of Roman buildings, found everywhere in modern England, furnish ample evidence.

In Dorchester, which was the Roman Durnovaria, besides the remains of the old Roman ruins and several camps, those of what was probably an amphitheater attest its former importance and the labors of the Roman builders. In Dover, the ancient Dubris, there is now an octagon tower attached to a church, and which is almost built of Roman bricks. It is supposed to have been a lighthouse in the time of the Romans. London, or Londinium, was a very old city, and was the capital of ancient Britain as it now is of modern England 'Though not invested by the Romans with the rights of a municipality, it was always, as Tacitus says, from the abundance of its trade, a place of great importance. The remains of Roman monuments which have been found in London show that it contained many splendid buildings. When the foundations of an old wall which bordered the river were laid open, several years ago, it was found to be composed of materials that had been previously used in the construction of ancient buildings. "The stones of which this wall was constructed," says Mr. Charles Roach Smith, "were portions of columns, friezes, cornices, and also foundation-stones. From their magnitude, character, and number, they gave an important and interesting insight into the obscure history of Roman London, in showing the architectural changes that had taken place in it." Architectural fragments, and the remains of tessellated pavements in great number have been discovered, which attest the magnificence of the Roman city, and traces of temples have also been found. It has been said that London was the station of a cohort of native Britons, which was contrary to the usage of the Roman Emperors, who never stationed auxiliaries in their native countries, but we know that a colony of veterans had been established at Camalodunum or Malden not far off, and there are inscriptions which attest the presence, at various times, of the soldiers of the second, sixth, and twentieth legions in the city. It is easy, therefore, to trace, as we must, the construction of these magnificent works to Roman architects, supplied by the legions or the colonies. Eboracum, or York, is familiar to the Masonic scholar from the important part that it plays in the traditional history of English Freemasonry. It was a town of much importance ill the times of the Romans, and seems to have been a favorite place of residence. It was the permanent station of the sixth or victorious legion. The Emperors Severus and Constantius died there, and it is said to have been the birthplace of Constantine the Great. Among the memorials of the Roman domination which have been found at York are numerous remains of temples, baths, altars,

votive tablets, and even private residences. Of the many inscriptions that have been preserved, one dedicated to the Egyptian god Serapis, and a tablet or slab containing the carved figure of a man with a cap and chlamys, or short mantle, who is stabbing a bull, indicate the introduction by the Romans of the worship of a foreign god as well as the cultivation of the mystical rites of Mithras. In the beginning of the 5th century, the Roman Empire being imminently threatened with downfall, the legions and the Roman authority, which had ruled and protected Britain for so long a period, were withdrawn. The people were left to defend themselves from the incursions of the Danes and other barbarous invaders from the opposite shores of the Continent. Many changes took place in the laws, the language, and the habits of the island.

In time, after many wars, Britain became Anglo-Saxon England. But, as on the retirement of the Romans, many voluntarily remained, because they had become habituated to the country and, in numerous cases, had been connected by intermarriages with the natives, Britain did not altogether lose the influence of the seed that had been sown. Especially in the art of building, although there was a deterioration, all the effects of the Roman civilization were not lost. And it will not, I think, be difficult to trace the development of the system of trade guilds which afterward existed among the Anglo-Saxons and the English to the suggestions of the similar guilds of the Roman colleges. But the consideration of this question must be postponed to a future chapter. What has been here attempted has been to show that the Roman colleges, sending their architects to the colonies and cities established 'in the conquered provinces of the Roman Empire, had secured, in an uninterrupted succession, not only the principles of architecture but the comprehensive and well-regulated system of work which, beginning at the earliest period of Roman history in the Colleges of Artificers, was to be carried throughout its acquired dominions by its legions and its colonists, and finally to be developed in a modern form in the corporations of operative Masons of the Middle Ages, and finally in the lodges of Speculative Masons of the present day. So far the first and second links of this chain of connection have been shown; we her close the history with the fall of the Roman dominion over the provinces at the beginning of the 5th century.

As we proceed in our investigations our inquires must bring us successively to the condition of architecture and its gradual growth into new systems and various styles in all the countries which were once under the Roman dominion. We shall, I believe, find the principles of architecture changing from the influences of different causes exerted at different times, Architecture will be constantly changing its features. The Roman, the Byzantine, the Gothic, and other styles will succeed and displace each other, but the system of cooperative or guild labor, which is the true connecting chain between the ancient and the modern methods of building, will always prevail and show, in every successive age, the unweakened influence of the old Roman guild or college.

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