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shafts quarried throughout the Roman Empire, Paolo Barresi noted that the vast majority
have lengths in multiples of even numbers. 117 Column shafts of the following lengths are
common: 12 R. ft (5 entries), 14 R. ft (4 entries), 16 R.ft (11 entries), 20 R. ft (8 entries),
24 R. ft (15 entries), 30 R. ft (10 entries), 40 R. ft (8 entries). Less common are heights of
17 R. ft (2 entries), 23 R. ft (1 entry), 25 R. ft (3), and totally absent lengths of 13, 15, 21,
and 27 R. ft. The Romans thus found a way to organize in a practical way the demand
and supply of marble architectural elements. With an established system of
measurements, architects knew what they were going to get from the quarries, and quarry
contractors were able to follow well-defined production guidelines.
A second point is that the ratio between a column’s lower diameter and height
does not appear to be uniform among the Punta Scifo column shafts. The calculated ratios
vary from 1:7 to 1:8, 1:9, and even 1:10. Allowing a certain degree of approximation due
to the artifacts’ poor state of preservation, and keeping in mind that protective collars
could have been trimmed to make a column fit well in the building, the relation between
lower diameter and column height varies from the ratio of 1:8 which characterizes the
majority of monolithic column shafts of Imperial date. 118
These newly-quarried shafts, increasing gradually in size according to a well-
defined set of architectural rules, were probably not meant to be used in a small building
with a single row of columns of identical dimensions (such as the peristyle of a Roman
villa), but were more likely part of a larger architectural enterprise, possibly
commissioned by Imperial authority, in which a series of colonnades, possibly
superimposed, required sets of column shafts of different heights. According to P. Orsi, a
117 Barresi 2002, 69-72.
118 Wilson Jones 2000, 148 and 222-3.
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