Great Throughts Treasury

"It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun."

"It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publications in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning."

"It was left by Aristoxenus, who with great ability and labour classified and arranged in it the different modes. In accordance with it, and by giving heed to these theories, one can easily bring a theatre to perfection, from the point of view of the nature of the voice, so as to give pleasure to the audience."

"Let the stone be taken from the quarry two years before building is to begin, and not in winter, but in summer. Then let it lie exposed in an open place. Such stone as been damaged by the two years of exposure should be used in the foundations. The rest, which remains unhurt, has passed the test of nature and will endure in those parts of the building which are above ground."

"Moreover, they collected from the members of the human body the proportionate dimensions which appear necessary in all building operations; the finger or inch, the palm, the foot, the cubit. and these they grouped into the perfect number which the Greeks call teleon. Now the ancients determined as perfect the number which is called ten. For from the hands they took the number of the inches; from the palm, the foot was discovered. Now while in the two palms with their fingers, ten inches are naturally complete, Plato considered that number perfect, for the reason that from the individual things which are called monades among the Greeks, the decad is perfect. But as soon as they are made eleven or twelve, because they are in excess, they cannot be perfect until they reach the second decad. For individual things are minor parts of that number."

"Music, also, the architect ought to understand so that he may have knowledge of the canonical and mathematical theory, and besides be able to tune ballistae, catapultae, and scorpiones to the proper key. For to the right and left in the beams are the holes in the frames through which the strings of twisted sinew are stretched by means of windlasses and bars, and these strings must not be clamped and made fast until they give the same correct note to the ear of the skilled workman. For the arms thrust through those stretched strings must, on being let go, strike their blow together at the same."

"Neither natural ability without instruction nor instruction without natural ability can make the perfect artist."

"Not less also because the foot has the sixth part of a man's height, and also because six times, that is the number six, in that it is completed by the number of feet, determined the height of the body, they fixed that number as perfect, observing that the cubit consists of six palms and twenty-four fingers. Hence also the cities of the Greeks seem to have made in a like fashion (just as the cubit is of six palms) six parts of the drachma, the coin which they use, stamped bronze coins like asses, which they call obols; and to have fixed twenty-four quarter obols, called by some dichalcha, by others trichalcha to correspond to the fingers."

"Noting all these things with the great delight which learning gives, we cannot but be stirred by these discoveries when we reflect upon the influence of them one by one."

"Nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before."

"Next I must tell about the machine of Ctesibius, which raises water to a height."

"On this principle of arrangement, the voice, uttered from the stage as from a center, and spreading and striking against the cavities of the different vessels, as it comes in contact with them, will be increased in clearness of sound, and will wake an harmonious note in unison with itself."

"One who in accordance with these notes will take pains in selecting his method of construction, may count upon having something that will last."

"Owing to this favor I need to have no fear of want to the end of my life, and being thus laid under obligation I began to write this work for you, because I saw that you have built and are now building extensively, and that in future also you will take care that our public and private buildings shall be worthy to go down to posterity by the side of your other splendid achievements."

"Of course, we need not be surprised if artistic excellence goes unrecognized on account of being unknown; but there should be the greatest indignation when, as often, good judges are flattered by the charm of social entertainments into an approbation which is a mere a pretense."

"Perhaps, to the uninformed, it may appear unaccountable that a man should be able to retain in his memory such a variety of learning; but the close alliance with each other, of the different branches of science, will explain the difficulty."

"Reflecton is careful and laborious thought, and watchful attention directed to the agreeable effect of one's plan. Invention, on the other hand, is the solving of intricate problems and the discovery of new principles by means of brilliancy and versatility."

"Pictures should not be given approbation which are not likenesses of reality; even if they are refined creations executed with artistic skill."

"Some have held that there are only four winds: Solanus from the east; Auster from the south; Favonius from due west; Septentrio from the north. But more careful investigators tell us that there are eight."

"Some springs are acid, as at Lyncestus and in Italy in the Velian country, at Teano in Campania, and in many other places. These when used in drinks have the power of breaking up stones in the bladder, which form in the human body."

"Such as possess the gifts of fortune are easily deprived of them: but when learning is once fixed in the mind, no age removes it, nor is its stability affected during the whole course of life."

"The fact is that pictures which are unlike reality ought not be approved, and even if they are technically fine, this is no reason why they should offhand be judged to be correct, if their subject is lacking in the principles of reality carried out with no violations."

"The gravity of a substance depends not on the amount of its weight, but on its nature."

"The moon makes her circuit of the heaven in twenty-eight days plus about an hour, and with her return to the sign from which she set forth, completes a lunar month."

"The planning of temples depends upon symmetry: and the method of this architects must diligently apprehend. It arises from proportion (which in Greek is called analogia). Proportion consists in taking a fixed module, in each case, both for the parts of a building and for the whole, by which the method of symmetry and proportion is put into practice. For without symmetry and proportion no temple can have a regular plan; that is, it must have an exact proportion worked out after the fashion of the members of a finely-shaped human body."

"The steps in front must be arranged so that there shall always be an odd number of them; for thus the right foot, with which one mounts the first step, will also be the first to reach the level of the temple itself."

"The thickness of the wall should, in my opinion, be such that armed men meeting on top of it may pass one another without interference."

"The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgment that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of the drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion… It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all point, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them."

"The difference between machines and engines is obviously this, that machines need more workmen and greater power to make them take effect, as for instance ballistae and the beams of presses. Engines, on the other hand, accomplish their purpose at the intelligent touch of a single workman,..."

"The architect must not only understand drawing, but music."

"The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect."

"The third order, called Corinthian, is an imitation of the slenderness of a maiden; for the outlines and limbs of maidens, being more slender on account of their tender years, admit of prettier effects in the way of adornment."

"Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom."

"There is nothing to which an architect should devote more thought than to the exact proportions of his building with reference to a certain part selected as the standard."

"Then, too, the columns at the corners should be made thicker than the others by a fiftieth of their own diameter, because they are sharply outlined by the unobstructed air around them, and seem to the beholder more slender than they are."

"Therefore if Nature has planned the human body so that the members correspond in their proportions to its complete configuration, the ancients seem to have had reason in determining that in the execution of their works they should observe an exact adjustment of the several members to the general pattern of the plan. Therefore, since in all their works they handed down orders, they did so especially in building temples, the excellences and the faults of which usually endure for ages."

"Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberate assembly, and to social intercourse."

"The word universe means the general assemblage of all nature, and it also means the heaven that is made up of the constellations and the courses of the stars."

"There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and in other countries of that kind."

"There are three departments of architecture: the art of building, the making of time-pieces, and the construction of machinery."

"Therefore, if it is agreed that number is found from the articulation of the body, and that there is a correspondence of the fixed ratio of the separate members to the general form of the body, it remains that we take up those writers who in planning the temples of the immortal gods so ordained the parts of the work that, by the help of proportion and symmetry, their several and general distribution is rendered congruous."

"These are, of course, some things which, for utility's sake, must be made of the same size in a small theatre, and a large one: such as the steps, curved cross-aisles, their parapets, the passages, stairways, stages, tribunals, and any other things which occur that make it necessary to give up symmetry so as not to interfere with utility."

"These rules for symmetry were established by Hermogenes, who was also the first to devise the principal of the pseudodipteral octastyle."

"They make a fine purple color by treating bilberry in the same way and mixing it with milk."

"To guard against this, we must proceed as follows. Let down a lighted lamp, and if it keeps burning, a man may make the descent without danger."

"They never begin to build defensive works in a place until after they had made many such trials and satisfied themselves that good water and food had made the liver sound and firm. If they continued to find it abnormal, they argued from this that the food and water supply found in such a place would be just as unhealthy for man, and so they moved away and changed to another neighborhood, healthfulness being their chief object."

"Water from clay pipes is much more wholesome than that which is conducted through lead pipes, because lead is found to be harmful for the reason that white lead is derived from it, and this is said to be hurtful to the human system."

"Thus by such victory, not by machines but in oppositions to the principle to the principles of machines, has the freedom of states been preserved by the cunning of architects."

"We, however, at first followed the ancient number, and in the denarius fixed ten bronze coins; whence to this day the derived name keeps the number ten (denarius). And also because the fourth part was made up of two asses and a half, they called it sestertius. But afterwards they perceived that both numbers were perfect, both the six and the ten; and they threw both together, and made the most perfect number sixteen. Now of this they found the origin in the foot. For when two palms are taken from the cubit, there is left a foot of four palms, and the palm has four fingers. So it comes that the foot has sixteen fingers and the bronze denarius as many asses."

"Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact."