Chapter 1 of Book II of "Ten Books on Architecture", available from Project Gutenberg. Sections 1, 2, and 7 (from the Richard Schofield translation published by Penguin rather than the one here) are quoted on pp. 218-219 of Spheres II by Peter Sloterdijk. Pay particular attention to Section 2.
1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another.
2. Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters of others and adding new details to their own inceptions, they constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on.
3. And since they were of an imitative and teachable nature, they would daily point out to each other the results of their building, boasting of the novelties in it; and thus, with their natural gifts sharpened by emulation, their standards improved daily. At first they set up forked stakes connected by twigs and covered these walls with mud. Others made walls of lumps of dried mud, covering them with reeds and leaves to keep out the rain and the heat. Finding that such roofs could not stand the rain during the storms of winter, they built them with peaks daubed with mud, the roofs sloping and projecting so as to carry off the rain water.
4. That houses originated as I have written above, we can see for ourselves from the buildings that are to this day constructed of like materials by foreign tribes: for instance, in Gaul, Spain, Portugal, and Aquitaine, roofed with oak shingles or thatched. Among the Colchians in Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees 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 forward from the standpoint of higher ideas born of the multiplication of the arts, they gave up huts and began to build houses with foundations, having brick or stone walls, and roofs of timber and tiles; next, observation and application led them from fluctuating and indefinite conceptions to definite rules of symmetry. Perceiving that nature had been lavish in the bestowal of timber and bountiful in stores of building material, they treated this like careful nurses, and thus developing the refinements of life, embellished them with luxuries. Therefore I shall now treat, to the best of my ability, of the things which are suitable to be used in buildings, showing their qualities and their excellencies.
8. Some persons, however, may find fault with the position of this book, thinking that it should have been placed first. I will therefore explain the matter, lest it be thought that I have made a mistake. Being engaged in writing a complete treatise on architecture, I resolved to set forth in the first book the branches of learning and studies of which it consists, to define its departments, and to show of what it is composed. Hence I have there declared what the qualities of an architect should be. In the first book, therefore, I have spoken of the function of the art, but in this I shall discuss the use of the building materials which nature provides. For this book does not show of what architecture is composed, but treats of the origin of the building art, how it was fostered, and how it made progress, step by step, until it reached its present perfection.
9. This book is, therefore, in its proper order and place.
I will now return to my subject, and with regard to the materials suited to the construction of buildings will consider their natural formation and in what proportions their elementary constituents were combined, making it all clear and not obscure to my readers. For there is no kind of material, no body, and no thing that can be produced or conceived of, which is not made up of elementary particles; and nature does not admit of a truthful exploration in accordance with the doctrines of the physicists without an accurate demonstration of the primary causes of things, showing how and why they are as they are.
Some Sloterdijk quotes to round this out.
Fire in the hole! (Here, Sloterdijk is presumably playing with words, since focus is fire in Latin.)
Here we get properly "phatic" activity going on. The "ring of people" (p. 221) reminds me also of the Kula ring, which is formed in a very different way, but which might perform a similar social function.
Sloterdijk discusses elsewhere (I think in "You must change your life" but I don't remember, maybe it is in his book on Derrida) how important bragging is in philosophical and religious history.
The other context (referenced in a note) is Spheres I, Chapter 6, Soul Partition: Angels---Twins---Doubles, pp. 413ff.
This is relevant to the question I posted in the former post -- about the possibility of non-state-centric phatics. Still an open question it seems to me. This is also relevant to our discussion of transcommunication, since we have posited that communal living in cities can easily fulfil the "kick back" feature of transcommunication. It's relatively clear that it "is" the city that kicks back.
This is the important cultural evolution I was referencing in Section 5.3 of our outline.
These purification rituals seem closely related to the pharmakos notion. Whereas the criminal represents the bad elements that need to be gotten rid of (the scapegoat), the vestal virgins and their fire represent the good elements that have the power to remedy that. But it seems obvious that these are two "gendered" poles of the same feature and that the vestal virgins are themselves prisoners of a sort. This reminds me of something I was reading recently about normalized prostitution in some groups in India. I'll have to look up the details when I get home. But for instance, compare the notion of "comfort women" to the pampering fire.
1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another.
2. Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters of others and adding new details to their own inceptions, they constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on.
3. And since they were of an imitative and teachable nature, they would daily point out to each other the results of their building, boasting of the novelties in it; and thus, with their natural gifts sharpened by emulation, their standards improved daily. At first they set up forked stakes connected by twigs and covered these walls with mud. Others made walls of lumps of dried mud, covering them with reeds and leaves to keep out the rain and the heat. Finding that such roofs could not stand the rain during the storms of winter, they built them with peaks daubed with mud, the roofs sloping and projecting so as to carry off the rain water.
4. That houses originated as I have written above, we can see for ourselves from the buildings that are to this day constructed of like materials by foreign tribes: for instance, in Gaul, Spain, Portugal, and Aquitaine, roofed with oak shingles or thatched. Among the Colchians in Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees 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 forward from the standpoint of higher ideas born of the multiplication of the arts, they gave up huts and began to build houses with foundations, having brick or stone walls, and roofs of timber and tiles; next, observation and application led them from fluctuating and indefinite conceptions to definite rules of symmetry. Perceiving that nature had been lavish in the bestowal of timber and bountiful in stores of building material, they treated this like careful nurses, and thus developing the refinements of life, embellished them with luxuries. Therefore I shall now treat, to the best of my ability, of the things which are suitable to be used in buildings, showing their qualities and their excellencies.
8. Some persons, however, may find fault with the position of this book, thinking that it should have been placed first. I will therefore explain the matter, lest it be thought that I have made a mistake. Being engaged in writing a complete treatise on architecture, I resolved to set forth in the first book the branches of learning and studies of which it consists, to define its departments, and to show of what it is composed. Hence I have there declared what the qualities of an architect should be. In the first book, therefore, I have spoken of the function of the art, but in this I shall discuss the use of the building materials which nature provides. For this book does not show of what architecture is composed, but treats of the origin of the building art, how it was fostered, and how it made progress, step by step, until it reached its present perfection.
9. This book is, therefore, in its proper order and place.
I will now return to my subject, and with regard to the materials suited to the construction of buildings will consider their natural formation and in what proportions their elementary constituents were combined, making it all clear and not obscure to my readers. For there is no kind of material, no body, and no thing that can be produced or conceived of, which is not made up of elementary particles; and nature does not admit of a truthful exploration in accordance with the doctrines of the physicists without an accurate demonstration of the primary causes of things, showing how and why they are as they are.
Some Sloterdijk quotes to round this out.
The vital point of Vitruvius' speculations is obvious: building follows a centripetal force that first causes humans to come together, and then results in the necessity of accommodating those who have gathered. (p.219)So this is another example of a centripetal or sociopetal force.
Fire pampers humans and makes them dependent on forms of relief; thus civilization could begin as a history of pampering---and a battle for access to the scarce means of pampering. All other pampering and relieving measures, both domestic and urban, followed the first great convenience of the open fire. It is the warmth of the tamed fire that draws people together in a gathering place, as if around a focal point. (p. 219-221)
Fire in the hole! (Here, Sloterdijk is presumably playing with words, since focus is fire in Latin.)
It would cost no effort to develop Vitruvius' laconic ideas further into a sociology of the hearth, which would identify the first motives of group formation in a doubly irresistible human conversation about this pleasantness. Vitruvius highlights the decisive point very clearly: the first humans to enjoy that warmth called the next over, then communicated with them in gestures and primitive words about the benefits of the new-found, wondrous central force. (p. 221)
Here we get properly "phatic" activity going on. The "ring of people" (p. 221) reminds me also of the Kula ring, which is formed in a very different way, but which might perform a similar social function.
Sloterdijk discusses elsewhere (I think in "You must change your life" but I don't remember, maybe it is in his book on Derrida) how important bragging is in philosophical and religious history.
[T]he hearth is older than the house, and a house is above all a converted fireplace. (pp. 222-223)This is a strong image. It's certainly true in my little house that the wood burning stove, brick fireplace, and chimney are a very central and prominent feature.
Human vessels and cooking vessels form a material rhyme around the hearth. I have shown in a different context why, in addition, the house always had to be a residence for spirits of closeness. (p. 223)
The other context (referenced in a note) is Spheres I, Chapter 6, Soul Partition: Angels---Twins---Doubles, pp. 413ff.
Only at the city hearth, consecrated to the goddess Hestia, could the solidarity-providing combination of domesticity and statehood be staged in a manifestly convincing manner. (p. 223)
This is relevant to the question I posted in the former post -- about the possibility of non-state-centric phatics. Still an open question it seems to me. This is also relevant to our discussion of transcommunication, since we have posited that communal living in cities can easily fulfil the "kick back" feature of transcommunication. It's relatively clear that it "is" the city that kicks back.
For the Romans, the shrine of the hearth goddess Vesta was undoubtedly the center of their res publica. Through the sacred fire guarded in her temple, the Romans secured their indispensable equation of house and empire. (p. 223)
This is the important cultural evolution I was referencing in Section 5.3 of our outline.
The untouched vestal virgins guaranteed the aura of utmost intactness, without which the gathering of citizens around the immaculate central hearth would have been unthinkable and unguardable. The priestesses of divine domesticity had to be equipped with extraordinary salvific privileges: if a criminal condemned to death passed a vestal virgin on the way to his execution, he was immediately set free.
These purification rituals seem closely related to the pharmakos notion. Whereas the criminal represents the bad elements that need to be gotten rid of (the scapegoat), the vestal virgins and their fire represent the good elements that have the power to remedy that. But it seems obvious that these are two "gendered" poles of the same feature and that the vestal virgins are themselves prisoners of a sort. This reminds me of something I was reading recently about normalized prostitution in some groups in India. I'll have to look up the details when I get home. But for instance, compare the notion of "comfort women" to the pampering fire.
«She tells me that she is a Bedia tribal girl from the Bhind district in Madhya Pradesh. Both her parents are still alive and she has a brother, and a sister who is happily married. In her community, it is the tradition for one girl from each family to serve as a communal prostitute, called the Bedni. This girl earns money for her family, while the males spend their time drinking alcohol and playing cards. 'That is why the birth of a girl is an occasion to celebrate in our community, not a cause for gloom. A boy is, in fact, a liability. You can find Bednis from my village in brotherls, truck stops, hotels and roadside restaurants, all sellingtheir bodies for money.'» - Vikas Swarup, Q&A, p. 305 (Black Swan, 2006)
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