At Jaffa in Syria and among the Nomads in Arabia, are lakes of enormous size that yield very large masses of asphalt, which are carried off by the inhabitants thereabouts.
Marcus Vitruvius PollioDimension stone, flint, rubble, burnt or unburnt brick, use them as you find them. For it is not every neighborhood or particular locality that can have a wall built of burnt brick like that at Babylon, where there was plenty of asphalt to take the place of lime and sand, and yet possibly each may be provided with materials of equal usefulness so that out of them a faultless wall may be built to last forever.
Marcus Vitruvius PollioArchitecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry , Propriety , and Economy.
Marcus Vitruvius PollioAs for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility.
Marcus Vitruvius PollioAstronomers have a common ground for discussion with musicians in the harmony of the stars and musical concords in tetrads and triads of the fourth and the fifth, and with geometricians in the subject of vision; and in all other sciences many points, perhaps all, are common so far as the discussion of them is concerned. But the actual undertaking of works which are brought to perfection by the hand and its manipulation is the function of those who have been specially trained to deal with a single art.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio