Caryatids

When Vitruvius, writing in his De Architectura Libri Decem, speaks of the importance of the study of history for an architect, it is interesting to see the role of slavery in his argument.

The architect, writes Vitruvius in Book 1, chapter 1, should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory....(...) A wide knowledge of history is prerequisite because, among the ornamental parts of an architect’s design for a work, there are many the underlying idea of whose employment he should be able to explain to enquirers. For instance, suppose him to set up the marble statues of women in long robes, called Caryatides, to take the place of columns, with the mutules and coronas placed directly above their heads, he will give the following explanation to his questioners. Caryae, a state in Peleponnesus, sided with the Persian enemies against Greece; later the Greeks, having gloriously won their freedom by victory in the war, made common cause and declared war against the people of Caryae. They took the town, killed the men, abandoned the state to desolation, and carried off their wives into slavery, without permitting them, however, to lay aside the long robes and other marks of their rank as married women, so that they may be obliged not only to march in the triumph but to appear forever after as a type of slavery, burdened with the weight of their shame and so making atonement for their state. Hence, the architects of the time designed for public buildings statues of these women, placed so as to carry a load, in order that the sin and the punishment of the people of Caryae might be known and handed down even to posterity.