BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Anderson and Spiers, Baumeister, Reber. Choisy, _L’Art de bâtir chez les Romains_. Desgodetz, _Rome in her Ancient Grandeur_. Durm, _Die Baukunst der Etrusker_; _Die Baukunst der Romer_. Lanciani, _Ancient Rome in the Light of Modern Discovery_; _New Tales of Old Rome_; _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_. De Martha, _Archéologie étrusque et romaine_. Middleton, _Ancient Rome in 1888_. +LAND AND PEOPLE.+ The geographical position of Italy conferred upon her special and obvious advantages for taking up and carrying northward and westward the arts of civilization. A scarcity of good harbors was the only drawback amid the blessings of a glorious climate, fertile soil, varied scenery, and rich material resources. From a remote antiquity Dorian colonists had occupied the southern portion and the island of Sicily, enriching them with splendid monuments of Doric art; and Phœnician commerce had brought thither the products of Oriental art and industry. The foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. established the nucleus about which the sundry populations of Italy were to crystallize into the Roman nation, under the dominating influence of the Latin element. Later on, the absorption of the conquered Etruscans added to this composite people a race of builders and engineers, as yet rude and uncouth in their art, but destined to become a powerful factor in developing the new architecture that was to spring from the contact of the practical Romans with the noble art of the Greek centres. +GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.+ While the Greeks bequeathed to posterity the most perfect models of form in literary and plastic art, it was reserved for the Romans to work out the applications of these to every-day material life. The Romans were above all things a practical people. Their consummate skill as organizers is manifest in the marvellous administrative institutions of their government, under which they united the most distant and diverse nationalities. Seemingly deficient in culture, they were yet able to recast the forms of Greek architecture in new moulds, and to evolve therefrom a mighty architecture adapted to wholly novel conditions. They brought engineering into the service of architecture, which they fitted to the varied requirements of government, public amusement, private luxury, and the common comfort. They covered the antique world with arches and amphitheatres, with villas, baths, basilicas, and temples, all bearing the unmistakable impress of Rome, though wrought by artists and artisans of divers races. Only an extraordinary genius for organization could have accomplished such results.