The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and their children.  As they were scattered in profusion throughout the empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of Europe have collections of imperial busts.  They are real portraits, probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had a well-marked physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to disguise.

In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned with representing things beautifully than exactly.

Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome.  We do not know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple and elegant grace.

=Architecture.=—­The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a practical need, is architecture.  In this too the Romans imitated the Greeks, borrowing the column from them.  But they had a form that the Greeks never employed—­the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another.  The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied than those of the Greeks.  The following are the principal varieties of Roman monuments: 

  1.  The Temple was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a
  broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome.  Of
  this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus.

2.  The Basilica was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and surrounded with porticos.  There sat the judge with his assistants about him; traders discussed the price of goods; the place was at once a bourse and a tribunal.  It was in the basilicas that the assemblies of the Christians were later held, and for several centuries the Christian churches preserved the name and form of basilicas.

3.  The Amphitheatre and the Circus were constructed of several stories of arcades surrounding an arena; each range of arcades supported many rows of seats.  Such were the Colosseum at Rome and the arenas at Arles and Nimes.

  4.  The Arch of Triumph was a gate of honor wide enough for the
  passage of a chariot, adorned with columns and surmounted with a
  group of sculpture.  The Arch of Titus is an example.

  5.  The Sepulchral Vault was an arched edifice provided with many
  rows of niches, in each of which were laid the ashes of a corpse. 
  It was called a Columbarium (pigeon-house) from its shape.