es governing the building of temples, have marked out under
separate heads their arrangements and proportions, and have set forth,
so far as I could express them in writing, the differences in their
plans and the distinctions which make them unlike one another. Next,
with regard to the altars of the immortal gods, I shall state how they
may be constructed so as to conform to the rules governing sacrifices.

CHAPTER IX

ALTARS

Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower
level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying
and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity. They are of
different heights, being each regulated so as to be appropriate to its
own god. Their heights are to be adjusted thus: for Jupiter and all the
celestials, let them be constructed as high as possible; for Vesta and
Mother Earth, let them be built low. In accordance with these rules
will altars be adjusted when one is preparing his plans.

Having described the arrangements of temples in this book, in the
following we shall give an exposition of the construction of public
buildings.

BOOK V

INTRODUCTION

1. Those who have filled books of unusually large size, Emperor, in
setting forth their intellectual ideas and doctrines, have thus made a
very great and remarkable addition to the authority of their writings. I
could wish that circumstances made this as permissible in the case of
our subject, so that the authority of the present treatise might be
increased by amplifications; but this is not so easy as it may be
thought. Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry. History
is captivating to the reader from its very nature; for it holds out the
hope of various novelties. Poetry, with its measures and metrical feet,
its refinement in the arrangement of words, and the delivery in verse of
the sentiments expressed by the several characters to one another,
delights the feelings of the reader, and leads him smoothly on to the
very end of the work.

2. But this cannot be the case with architectural treatises, because
those terms which originate in the peculiar needs of the art, give rise
to obscurity of ideas from the unusual nature of the language. Hence,
while the things themselves are not well known, and their names not in
common use, if besides this the principles are described in a very
diffuse fashion without any attempt at conciseness and explanation in