Sanctuary Of Fortune At Praeneste (Palestrina) (late second century B.C.): one of the monumental architectural complexes put up
in the cities of Latium in the period before the Social War. These projects made a significant contribution to the emergence of
Roman architecture, with their vaulted substructures, their grand terraces, and their combination of arched openings with engaged
Greek orders.
In the early stages concrete was used for types of building which had no tradition of columnar or trabeated construction, notably
market- and store-buildings. The Porticus Aemilia, a huge warehouse in Rome's dockland, constructed in 193 B.C. and rebuilt or
restored in 174, provides a precocious example, 487 m. long, 60 m. wide, and divided by 294 pillars into a grid of 350 vaulted bays.
Its walls were faced with carefully fitted pieces of rubble (opus incertum), a style which remained in vogue throughout the second
century. To the latter years of the century belongs the first great monument in the new technique, the sanctuary of Fortune at
Praeneste (Palestrina). Here we find basically Hellenistic elements, such as an axial layout, open terraces, and arcaded retaining
walls, employed on an unprecedented scale, thanks to the use of concrete. At the same time traditional Greek colonnades were
incorporated in facades to support the front half of a longitudinal vault, or engaged in wall-schemes as a purely decorative framing
for arched openings. The latter device, which was picked up by Sullan architects a few decades later, was destined to become a great
favourite on Roman exteriors and serves almost as an epitome of the fusion of Italian techniques and the Hellenistic formal
vocabulary.