The Pantheon - Hughes

The Pantheon, or the "temple of all the gods" is the "most complete Roman building to survive from antiquity," (Hughes, P.109). Hughes calls it "the enormous concrete-and-stone masterpiece of engineering," (P.109). It was built to replace the original Pantheon which caught fire in 80 C.E and burned down. It was rebuilt in 125 C.E by Hadrian. Apparently, the inscription on the Pantheon states that it was Agrippa who built it, even though he was dead when it was rebuilt by Hadrian. Agrippa was the guy who built the original Pantheon, which he got credit for, so the reason why he was wrongly credited for building the new one is uncertain. He died in 12 C.E and it wasn't rebuilt for another 113 years. Hughes says that the Pantheon is the "greatest of all surviving structures of ancient Rome," (P. 101). Hughes gives us a long lesson on how the dome was constructed and how the technology should have been impossible without the ability to form a much smaller scale model with plastic, which wasn't available in that time period. It's incredible that the Pantheon still stands today in such prime condition that it is in. It is the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome that even passes the size of the dome in St.Peter's Basilica by "just seventy-eight centimeters," (P. 112). Hughes says that no modern architect would even dare to create a dome in solid concrete with absolutely no reinforcement. I wouldn't want to be in a dome that large make of solid concrete for much longer than the amount of a tour, but it has been standing for nearly two-thousand years and "shows no prospect of collapse, (P. 112).