rees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build
up high towers. The interstices, which are left on account of the
thickness of the building material, are stopped up with chips and mud.
As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the crossbeams and making
them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring them up to
the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid. They cover it
with leaves and mud, and thus construct the roofs of their towers in a
rude form of the "tortoise" style.

5. On the other hand, the Phrygians, who live in an open country, have
no forests and consequently lack timber. They therefore select a natural
hillock, run a trench through the middle of it, dig passages, and extend
the interior space as widely as the site admits. Over it they build a
pyramidal roof of logs fastened together, and this they cover with reeds
and brushwood, heaping up very high mounds of earth above their
dwellings. Thus their fashion in houses makes their winters very warm
and their summers very cool. Some construct hovels with roofs of rushes
from the swamps. Among other nations, also, in some places there are
huts of the same or a similar method of construction. Likewise at
Marseilles we can see roofs without tiles, made of earth mixed with
straw. In Athens on the Areopagus there is to this day a relic of
antiquity with a mud roof. The hut of Romulus on the Capitol is a
significant reminder of the fashions of old times, and likewise the
thatched roofs of temples or the Citadel.

6. From such specimens we can draw our inferences with regard to the
devices used in the buildings of antiquity, and conclude that they were
similar.

Furthermore, as men made progress by becoming daily more expert in
building, and as their ingenuity was increased by their dexterity so
that from habit they attained to considerable skill, their intelligence
was enlarged by their industry until the more proficient adopted the
trade of carpenters. From these early beginnings, and from the fact that
nature had not only endowed the human race with senses like the rest of
the animals, but had also equipped their minds with the powers of
thought and understanding, thus putting all other animals under their
sway, they next gradually advanced from the construction of buildings to
the other arts and sciences, and so passed from a rude and barbarous
mode of life to civilization and refinement.

7. Then, taking courage and looking for