ARCUS
ARCUS (
βιός,
τόξον), the bow used for shooting arrows, is one of the most
ancient weapons, but its use in warfare was early abandoned by the Greeks in
general, and it became a characteristic of Asia rather than of Europe. Thus,
in the description given by Herodotus (
7.61-
80) of the various nations composing the army of
Xerxes, we observe that nearly all the troops used the bow, and in Greek art
also the bow generally serves to distinguish barbarian races, although of
course it still was
[p. 1.170]retained as in ancient times
in representations of certain deities, such as Apollo, Artemis, and
Heracles. The Scythians and Parthians were the most celebrated archers in
the East, and among the Greeks the Cretans, who frequently served as a
separate corps in the Greek armies, and subsequently also among the
auxiliary troops of the Romans. (Comp.
Xen. Anab.
1.2, § 9;
Liv. 42.35.) The
use of the bow in the chase continued, nor was archery as an exercise
abandoned (Plat.
Legg. i. p. 625; 6.794, 795; 7.813, 814;
8.384, 434), although it failed to gain the same encouragement in the games
as other exercises testing the strength and skill of the upper part of the
body, such as throwing the quoit and the spear. A contest of archers,
however, is described in
Hom. Il.
23.850-
84. In later times an
ἀγὼν τοξικός was held at Ceos and at
Sestos.
Pandarus' bow (
Hom. Il. 4.105-
26) may be taken as an ordinary Greek bow of
heroic proportions. It was composed of the horns of a wild goat, sixteen
palms in length, joined by a straight, stock (
πῆχυς) in the centre, with a golden tip (
κορώνη) at the end of one horn, on which, when the bow was
strung, was fastened that end of the string (
νευρή,
ϝεῦρα βόεια,
Il. 4.122,
nervus) which was not permanently attached. In order to make the
bow more flexible, it was sometimes rubbed with oil before a fire (
Od. 21.175-
80). Such a bow is represented in the upper figure in the
accompanying woodcut,
 |
|
Greek Bows.
|
from a fictile vase. In Hom.
Il.. 4.115-126, the
action of shooting is described, and this account is illustrated by the
following outline of
 |
|
Figure in the Aeginetan Marbles, drawing the Bow.
|
a statue belonging to the group of the Aeginetan Marbles. The bow
placed in the hands of this statue was probably of bronze, but it has been
lost. In
Od. 21.405-
23 we have a similar description, but there
Odysseus shoots sitting. In later times flexible wood was sometimes used in
place of horn, and in that case the bow, when unbent, had a circular form,
whence it is described with the epithets
sinuatus (
Ov. Met. 8.381) and
sinuosus (id.
Am. 1.1, 23);
it was sometimes straight with curved ends. For a string a strip of leather
was sometimes used in place of the sinew of the ox, or even horse-hair
(
Verg. A. 10.622; Ov.
ex Ponto, 1.2, 21), which no doubt was braided, as
in a representation figured in
Mon. inod. dell' Inst. Arch.
1851, pi. xxviii.
The lower figure in the cut above, also from a fictile vase, is probably
Homer's
τόξον παλίντονον (
Il. 8.266,
10.459,
15.433;
Od. 21.11 and 59;
Hdt.
7.69: the last passage shows that
παλίντονος cannot be taken as a mere literary epithet, but
describes a distinct variety of bow). When strung, it was bent backwards
against the curve, which must have given it unusual force.
The Scythian bow was distinct from the ordinary Greek forms of the bow, and
was curved into two unequal
sinus. The
accompanying cut is taken from a golden ornament on a sword sheath found in
the Crimea, now in St. Petersburg (see Plate 5 in
Commission
Archéologique pour l'année 1865). Strabo
(2.22)
 |
|
Scythian Bow.
|
compares the outline of the Black Sea to a Scythian bow, the
southern coast resembling the string, and the other coasts recalling the two
curves of the bow, one of which projects further than the other. Again, the
Scythian bow is compared to a serpent (Lycophr. 917), and to the letter
Σ, which in many of its ancient forms
consists of two unequal curves.
In the Roman army archers (
sagittarii) do not
appear to have been employed before the Punic Wars, and afterwards only as
auxiliaries, being especially drawn from Crete and the Balearic Islands.
[
SAGITTA] The Asiatic
cataphracti [
CATAPHRACTI] were often armed with the bow.
When not used, the bow was put into a case (
τοξοθήκη,
γωρυτός,
corytus), which was made of leather, and sometimes
ornamented (
φαεινός,
Hom. Od. 21.54). The bow-case is very
conspicuous
[p. 1.171]in the sculptured bas-reliefs of
Persepolis. It frequently held the arrows as well as the bow, and on this
account is often used by the Roman poets as equivalent to the
pharetra or quiver. (
Verg.
A. 10.169;
Ov. Tr.
5.7, 15; Sil. 7.443.) Though its use was comparatively rare among the
Greeks and Romans, we find it exhibited in a bas-relief in the Museo
Pio-Clementino (vol. iv. tav. 43), which is copied in the annexed cut.
 |
|
Corytus, Bow-case. (From a relief in the Vatican.)
|
[
J.Y] [
J.H.F]
ARCUS (also
fornix,
Verg. A. 6.631;
Cic.
Ver. 1.7, 19,
et alibi;
καμάρα), an arch. It is possible to give an
arched form to the covering of any opening by placing horizontal courses of
stones projecting over one another, from both sides of the opening, till
they meet at top, and then cutting the ends of the projecting stones to a
regular curve, as shown below. This form is found in the most ancient
architecture of nearly all nations, but it does not constitute a true arch.
A true arch is formed of a series of wedge-like stones, or of bricks,
supporting each other, and all bound firmly together by their mutual
pressure.
It would seem that the arch, as thus defined, and as used by the Romans, was
not known to the Greeks in the early periods of their history, otherwise a
language so copious as theirs, and of such ready application, would not have
wanted a name properly Greek by which to distinguish it. But the
constructive principle by which an arch is made to hold together, and to
afford a solid resistance against the pressure upon its circumference, was
known to them even previously to the Trojan war, and its use is exemplified
in two of the earliest buildings now remaining--the chamber built at
Orchomenus, by Minyas, king of Boeotia, described by Pausanias (
9.38), and the treasury of Atreus at Mycenae
(
Paus. 2.16). Both these works are
constructed under ground, and each of them consists of a circular chamber
formed by regular courses of stones laid horizontally over each other, each
course projecting towards the interior, and beyond the one below it, till
they meet in an apex over the centre, which was capped by a large stone, and
thus resembled the inside of a dome. Each of the horizontal courses of
stones formed a perfect circle, or two semicircular arches joined together,
as the subjoined plan of one of these courses will render evident.
It will be observed that the innermost end of each stone is bevelled off into
the shape of a wedge, the apex of which, if continued, would meet in the
centre of the circle, as is done in forming an arch; while the outer ends
against the earth are left rough, and their interstices filled up with small
irregular-shaped stones, the immense size of the principal stones rendering
it unnecessary to continue the sectional cutting throughout their whole
length. Schliemann points out that the stones, contrary to the general
belief, are not immediately covered with earth, but with enormous masses of
stone, which,
 |
|
Circular masonry at Mycenae.
|
by their ponderous weight, keep all the stones of the circular
layers of masonry in their position. Thus the principle of this construction
is, as Colonel Leake justly remarks, that of an archshaped wall resisting a
great superincumbent weight, and deriving its strength and coherence, from
the weight itself (Schliemann,
Mycenae, p. 43;
Leake,
Morea, ii. p. 377). Thus it seems that the Greeks did
understand the constructive principle upon which arches are formed, even in
the earliest times; although it did not occur to them to divide the circle
by a diameter, and set the half of it upright to bear a superincumbent
weight. But they made use of a contrivance, even before the Trojan war, by
which they were enabled to gain all the advantages of our archway in making
corridors, or hollow galleries, and which in appearance resembled the
pointed arch, such as is now termed Gothic. This was effected by cutting
away the superincumbent stones in the manner already described, at an angle
of 45° with the horizon. The mode of construction and appearance of
such arches are represented in
 |
|
Pointed Arch in the walls of Tiryns.
|
the annexed drawing of the walls of Tiryns, copied from Sir
William Gell's Argolis. The
[p. 1.172]gate of Signia
(
Segni) in Latium exhibits a similar
example.
The principle of the true arch was known to the Egyptians, but it is
remarkable that they did not make use of it in their most massive works
(Wilkinson, ii. p. 299, ed. of 1878). The Assyrians also used it in
subterranean buildings (Layard,
Nineveh, i. p. 167; ii. p.
260). There are also a few specimens of the true arch in ancient Greece. At
Oeniadae, in Acarnania, is a postern of a perfect arch in the polygonal
walls of the city (Leake,
Northern Greece, iii. p. 560
seq.); and at Xerokampo, in the neighbourhood of
Sparta, is a bridge on the true archprinciple (Mure,
Tour in
Greece, ii. p. 248), though the latter, in the opinion of many
archaeologists, is of Roman construction (Dennis,
Etruria, ii. p. 250
seq.). But these
are rare instances; and the Etruscans are the first people who used the true
arch extensively. Two circumstances may have favoured this--the ease with
which tufa is split into wedges, and the necessity of constructing extensive
tunnels to drain the valleys of the Tiber and the Arno, and the marshes of
the coast. Hence the use of the arch passed into the architecture of
buildings. The Romans probably borrowed it from the Etruscans. Thus the
Cloaca Maxima, long held to be the oldest
instance of the arch at Rome, and attributed to the Tarquinii [
CLOACA], closely resembles the
canal of the Marta (Dennis,
Etruria, i. p. 430
seq.). But whatever date be assigned to the
Cloaca Maxima in its arched form, the
general use of the arch even in subterranean buildings is far later. Thus
the
specus of the
Aqua
Appia (B.C. 313) is gabled, not arched (Burn,
Rome and the
Campagna, p. xxv.). The key-stone of the arch is mentioned by
Seneca. ( “Democritus invenisse dicitur fornicem, ut lapidum curvatura
paulatim inclinatorum medio saxo alligaretur,”
Fp. 90.
med.) The use of the
arch constitutes one leading distinction between Greek and Roman
architecture, for by its application the Romans were enabled to execute
works of far bolder construction than those of the Greeks,--to erect
aqueducts and permanent bridges, spanning broad and rapid rivers, and
“to make a comparatively fragile material, such as brick, more
extensively useful than the finest marbles in the hands of the
Greeks.”
But in many Roman edifices we find the use of “the arched form without
the principle of the arch” (Middleton,
Ancient Rome
in 1885, p. 366), as the facing of brick or stone covers a concrete
arch cast in one solid mass, and therefore without lateral thrust. [
CAEMENTUM] This is especially
apparent in the thermae of Caracalla, and in the relieving arches in the
walls of the Pantheon and other buildings, which are of no structural
importance, but simply shallow indentations in a wall which was really one
solid slab of concrete (Middleton, ib. p. 33).
[
A.R] [
J.H.F] [
W.S]
