The following are its principal contents:—A general view of the science and of the education suitable to an architect; the choice of sites; the arrangement of the buildings and fortifications of a city;[1000] an interesting essay on the earliest human dwellings, building materials,[1001] temples, altars,[1002] forums, basilicæ, treasuries, jails, court-houses, baths, palæstræ, harbours, theatres, together with their acoustic principles, and the theory of musical sounds and harmonies.[1003] Private dwellings, both in town and country;[1004] decoration;[1005] water, and the means of supply;[1006] chronometrical instruments;[1007] surveying[1008] and engineering, both civil and military. His work is valuable as a conspectus of the principles of Greek architectural taste and beauty, of which he was a devoted admirer, and from which he would not willingly have permitted any deviation. But he was evidently deficient in the knowledge of the principles of Greek architectural construction.[1009] His taste was pure, too pure probably for the Romans; for, notwithstanding his theoretical excellence, we have no evidence of his being employed, practically, as an architect, except in the case of the Basilica,[1010] at Colonia Julia Fanestris, now Fano, near Ancona. BOOK III. ERA OF THE DECLINE. CHAPTER I. DECLINE OF ROMAN LITERATURE—IT BECAME DECLAMATORY—BIOGRAPHY OF PHÆDRUS—GENUINENESS OF HIS FABLES—MORAL AND POLITICAL LESSONS INCULCATED IN THEM—SPECIMENS OF FABLES—FABLES SUGGESTED BY HISTORICAL EVENTS—SEJANUS AND TIBERIUS—EPOCH UNFAVOURABLE TO LITERATURE—INGENUITY OF PHÆDRUS—SUPERIORITY OF ÆSOP—THE STYLE OF PHÆDRUS CLASSICAL. With the death of Augustus[1011] commenced the decline of Roman literature, and only three illustrious names, Phædrus, Persius, and Lucan, rescue the first years of this period from the charge of a corrupt and vitiated taste. After awhile, indeed, political circumstances again became more favourable—the dangers which paralyzed genius and talent, and prevented their free exercise under Tiberius and his tyrannical successors, diminished, and a more liberal system of administration ensued under Vespasian and Titus. Juvenal and Tacitus then stood forth as the representatives of the old Roman independence; vigour of thought communicated itself to the language; a taste for the sublime and beautiful to a certain extent revived, although it did not attain to the perfection which shed a lustre over the Augustan age.