Means by which the large blocks of travertine and marble were lifted during the construction of the large Tomb of Caecilia Metella, from Le Antichit? Romane (Roman Antiquities), tome 3, tavola 53, published 1756?57, Etching, Sheet: 21 1/4 x 30 5/16 in. (54 x 77 cm), Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, Mogliano Veneto 1720?1778 Rome), Angelo Rotili, While Piranesi was at work on the Antichit? Romane, the result of years of research into the highly developed engineering skills of the Romans, the first threats to Roman preeminence were heard. In the early 1750s, certain French and British scholars and architects had begun to assert that the Romans were mere imitators of the Greeks, under whom all the arts had attained perfection