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   For that style of decoration called the Arabesque, we are indebted to
the
 Romans.    When it was first employed by this people it was commonly
 known as the grotesque, a term       which   was not used     in the common
 acceptation of the word, but adopted in allusion to the origin of the
 style; for it was supposed to be derived from    the caverns and grottoes
of
 the Egyptians.   Vitruvius, as we have already stated, objected to its use;
 and to enforce the propriety of his assertion, that it was opposed to nature,
 relates an appropriate anecdote.  At Tralles, a town of Lydia, Apaturius
of
 Alabanda had painted an elegant scene for the theatre, "in which, instead
of
 columns, he introduced statues and centaurs to support the epistylium, the
 circular end of the dome and the angles of the pediments, and ornamented
 the cornice with lions' heads, all which are appropriate as ornaments of
the
 roofing and eaves of edifices; he painted above them in the episcenium,
 a repetition of the domes, porticoes, half-pediments, and other parts of
roofs
 and their ornaments."   So rich was this painting, that the audience
were
 ready to applaud, when Licinius the mathematician stood up, and addressing
the people, said, " Who among you would 'place columns or pediments
on
the tiles which cover the roofs of your houses'? These things stand on the
floors, not on the tiles."   In this way he induced the people to withhold
their approbation; and Apaturius was compelled to alter the scene, so as
to
make it consistent with    truth.   The same objection, in     the opinion
  of
Vitruvius, ought to prevent the use of the Arabesque.
  Why the style we are about to describe should have been called the
Arabesque, all writers are at a loss to determine.      The name would seem
to convey the notion that it had some connexion with the Arabs, and that
they were either the inventors or improvers.   But it is well known that
this
could not have been the case; for the Arabs are restricted by their religion
from the representation of the forms of animals.     It is much more easy
to
account for the origin of the style itself. When the taste for decorating
the
apartments of the noble and wealthy by basso and alto relievos was in some
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