'Unconscious rivals' 1893

Although the Romans did use barrel vaulting, this structure has the scale of an aircraft hangar, and does not correspond to any known classical building. Hyperbolic representations of classical architecture have a good precedent: Piranesi's Vedute di Roma are well known to have exaggerated the scale of many buildings -- even though the etchings in Piranesi's Views of Rome (unlike his more famous Imaginary Prisons) were intended to show what was actually visible in Eternal City in the 18th century.    Alma Tadema rises to the challenge with a typical combination of abruptly varying scales, asymmetry and brutal cropping, not to mention the the eponymous rivals, straight out of 'Vogus'.

§ Treuherz, 1993, p.171