Walls were built of ordinary masonry or of concrete (faced or unfaced). There are several examples of early stone walling without courses (continuous layers), especially in towns such as Norba and Praeneste. Most of the stone walls existing, however, were built of fairly large squared blocks laid in regular courses as headers (stones or bricks laid with ends toward the face of the wall) and stretchers (stones or bricks laid with lengths parallel to the face of the wall). This type of masonry was called opus quadratum.

Concrete walls, except below ground, were always faced. They were divided into types according to the kind of facing used. (1) Opus quadratum—that is, ordinary stone walling—was used as a facing especially for important public buildings under the earlier empire (for example, the exterior of the Colosseum). (2) Opus incertum was the most common facing for ordinary concrete walls of the 2nd and 1st centuries bce. The face of the concrete was studded with 3- to 4-inch (8- to 10-cm) irregularly shaped pieces of stone, usually tuff. (3) Opus reticulatum came into vogue in the 1st century bce and remained until the time of Hadrian (117 ce). The construction was like that of opus incertum but the pieces of stone were pyramid-shaped with square bases set diagonally in rows and wedged into the concrete walls. (4) Brick- and tile-faced concrete (so-called opus testaceum) was by far the most common material for walling during the empire. Triangular tiles were used with their points turned into the concrete and their long sides showing, thus giving the appearance of a wall built of thin bricks. Bonding courses of bipedales were employed at intervals of 2 or 3 feet (60 or 90 cm). (5) Mixed brick and stone facing, called opus mixtum, was popular under the later empire and especially under Diocletian (284–305 ce).

Other kinds of supports included columns and piers. Columns were usually of stone and often monolithic; occasionally, small columns were made of brick covered with stucco. Piers (solid blocks of masonry supporting either an arch or a lintel) were often made of stone, but those serving as primary support for large vaults were usually made of concrete.

Arches occurred in gates, bridges, and aqueducts, as well as in colonnades and doors. Not only round but also segmental (part of a circle but less than a semicircle) and flat arches were used freely. The discovery of concrete enormously facilitated the spread of arch construction. Concrete arches were faced with wedge-shaped stones or tiles called voussoirs.

The vaults used by the Romans were simple geometric forms: the barrel vault (semicircular in shape), the intersecting (groined) barrel vault, and the segmental vault. By the 1st century bce extensive systems of barrel vaulting were being employed. The surfaces of the vaults were tile-faced or covered with stucco. A fine example of Roman vaulting is the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome. The construction of the dome naturally follows that of the vault. Characteristic of imperial Roman design was the elaboration of complex forms of domes to fit multilobed ground plans.

Most monumental buildings were erected for public use, and income, if any, from rents or fees went to the public treasury. Many of these buildings, however, were erected by wealthy individuals and given to the community in a form of voluntary income tax. Construction was done by state agencies or private contractors, employing enslaved or free labour. Techniques and crafts were highly developed, though machines were simple and powered by people or animals.

Design

The pervasive Roman predilection was for clear composition—the organization of lines, surfaces, masses, and volumes in space. In this the Romans differed from their predecessors in the ancient Mediterranean world, and, however freely they used the elements of earlier styles, in Rome or in the provinces they recast them according to their own taste.

Their most conspicuous inheritance were the orders. These were taken directly from Greek tradition, with little alteration of their major form, although the Romans did use them with little attention to their internal logic. There were five orders of Roman architecture: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite. Tuscan and Composite were modifications of the Greek Doric and Corinthian orders, respectively. In general, the proportion of the Roman order was more slender than that of the corresponding Greek order, and there was a tendency toward greater elaboration. Columns were often unfluted, but the faces of the entablature, left plain in Greek work, were covered with decoration.

Unlike the Greek Doric, the Roman Doric order almost invariably had a base molding that was probably taken from the Etruscan Doric or Tuscan column. Examples of Roman Doric are to be found in the Tabularium (78 bce), Rome, and in the lowest order of the Colosseum (80 ce), where it was used in conjunction with the arch. The Temple of Hercules at Cori, Italy (c. 80 bce), is one of the few known Roman Doric temples.

The Ionic order was used in some temples and public buildings, and the number of isolated capitals found suggests that it had a certain vogue in private homes. Notable examples of this order are the Temple of Fortuna Virilis and Trajan’s Forum at Rome.

Because of its richness, the Corinthian order was by far the most popular with Roman builders. Columns removed by the conquering Roman general Sulla in about 86 bce from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens were the model, but the whole order became progressively elaborated in detail and showed a tendency toward sharp contrasts of light and shadow. Examples of this order are seen at the temples of Mars Ultor and of Castor and Pollux in Rome and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli.

The Composite capital is formed from a Corinthian capital and an Ionic volute (spiral, scroll-shaped ornament) at each of the four corners. Examples of this capital are found in Rome on the triumphal arches of Titus and Septimius Severus and in the Baths of Diocletian.

Although the orders were taken bodily from the Greeks, in Roman architecture columns carried arches as well as entablatures, permitting more varied linear patterns, wider intercolumniations, and greater freedom in articulating spatial forms. Moreover, as a development of Greek practice in temples at Acragas, Selinus, Bassae, and Tegea, columns were used not only as primary supports but also decoratively as detached columns and pilasters (flattened columns). Realistic or fanciful architectural compositions were even painted on some walls to give an illusion of the same effect.

In terms of primary architectural forms, Roman design from its first emergence from Italic and Etruscan traditions favoured temples with spacious porches, like the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii. In imperial architecture the design of the temple precinct, forum, thermae (baths), and other public buildings was normally conceived as a complex of variously formed spaces related to variously formed masses. Even landscaping was incorporated, as at the imperial Roman villas at Tivoli and Capri. Interiors of smaller houses as well as of grand structures were designed around vistas through variously shaped rooms of varying qualities of illumination. There was a powerful, even rigid, final dominant of axial symmetry, but against this was exploited richly every kind of spatial form in a highly developed system of organization.