Chapter 10

GREEK ARCHITECTURE--_Continued_.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Same as for Chapter VI. Also, Bacon and Clarke, _Investigations at Assos_. Espouy, _Fragments d’architecture antique_. Harrison and Verrall, _Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens_. Hitorff et Zanth, _Recueil des Monuments de Ségeste et Sélinonte_. Magne, _Le Parthénon_. Koldewey and Puchstein, _Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien_. Waldstein, _The Argive Heræum_.

+HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT.+ The history of Greek architecture, subsequent to the Heroic or Primitive Age, may be divided into periods as follows:

The ARCHAIC; from 650 to 500 B.C.

The TRANSITIONAL; from 500 to 460 B.C., or to the revival of prosperity after the Persian wars.

The PERICLEAN; from 460 to 400 B.C.

The FLORID or ALEXANDRIAN; from 400 to 300 B.C.

The DECADENT; 300 to 100 B.C.

The ROMAN; 100 B.C. to 200 A.D.

These dates are, of course, somewhat arbitrary; it is impossible to set exact bounds to style-periods, which must inevitably overlap at certain points, but the dates, as given above, will assist in distinguishing the successive phases of the history.

+ARCHAIC PERIOD.+ The archaic period is characterized by the exclusive use of the Doric order, which appears in the earliest monuments complete in all its parts, but heavy in its proportions and coarse in its execution. The oldest known temples of this period are the +Apollo Temple+ at Corinth (650 B.C.?), and the +Northern Temple+ on the acropolis at +Selinus+ in Sicily (cir. 610-590 B.C.). They are both of a coarse limestone covered with stucco. The columns are low and massive (4⅓ to 4⅔ diameters in height), widely spaced, and carry a very high entablature. The triglyphs still appear around the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, an illogical detail destined to disappear in later buildings. Other temples at Selinus date from the middle or latter part of the sixth century; they have higher columns and finer profiles than those just mentioned. The great +Temple of Zeus+ at +Selinus+ was the earliest of five colossal Greek temples of very nearly identical dimensions; it measured 360 feet by 167 feet in plan, but was never completed. During the second half of the sixth century important Doric temples were built at Pæstum in South Italy, and Agrigentum in Sicily; the somewhat primitive temple at Assos in Asia Minor, with uncouth carvings of centaurs and monsters on its architrave, belongs to this same period. The +Temple of Zeus+ at +Agrigentum+ (Fig. 33) is another singular and exceptional design, and was the second of the five colossal temples mentioned above. The pteroma was entirely enclosed by walls with engaged columns showing externally, and was of extraordinary width. The walls of the narrow cella were interrupted by heavy piers supporting atlantes, or applied statues under the ceiling. There seem to have been windows between these figures, but it is not clear whence they borrowed their light, unless it was admitted by the omission of the metopes between the external triglyphs.

+THE TRANSITION.+ During the transitional period there was a marked improvement in the proportions, detail, and workmanship of the temples. The cella was made broader, the columns more slender, the entablature lighter. The triglyphs disappeared from the cella wall, and sculpture of a higher order enhanced the architectural effect. The profiles of the mouldings and especially of the capitals became more subtle and refined in their curves, while the development of the Ionic order in important monuments in Asia Minor was preparing the way for the splendors of the Periclean age. Three temples especially deserve notice: the +Athena Temple+ on the island of +Ægina+, the +Temple of Zeus+ at +Olympia+, and the so-called +Theseum+--perhaps a temple of Heracles--in Athens. They belong to the period 470-450 B.C.; they are all hexastyle and peripteral, and without triglyphs on the cella wall. Of the three the second in the list is interesting as the scene of those rites which preceded and accompanied the Panhellenic Olympian games, and as the central feature of the Altis, the most complete temple-group and enclosure among all Greek remains. It was built of a coarse conglomerate, finished with fine stucco, and embellished with sculpture by the greatest masters of the time. The adjacent +Heraion+ (temple of Hera) was a highly venerated and ancient shrine, originally built with wooden columns which, according to Pausanias, were replaced one by one, as they decayed, by stone columns. The truth of this statement is attested by the discovery of a singular variety of capitals among its ruins, corresponding to the various periods at which they were added. The Theseum is the most perfectly preserved of all Greek temples, and in the refinement of its forms is only surpassed by those of the Periclean age.

+THE PERICLEAN AGE.+ The Persian wars may be taken as the dividing line between the Transition period and the Periclean age. The _élan_ of national enthusiasm that followed the expulsion of the invader, and the glory and wealth which accrued to Athens as the champion of all Hellas, resulted in a splendid reconstruction of the Attic monuments as well as a revival of building activity in Asia Minor. By the wise administration of Pericles and by the genius of Ictinus, Phidias, and other artists of surpassing skill, the Acropolis at Athens was crowned with a group of buildings and statues absolutely unrivalled. Chief among them was the +Parthenon+, the shrine of Athena Parthenos, which the critics of all schools have agreed in considering the most faultless in design and execution of all buildings erected by man (Figs. 31, 34, and Frontispiece). It was an octastyle peripteral temple, with seventeen columns on the side, and measured 220 by 100 feet on the top of the stylobate. It was the work of Ictinus and Callicrates, built to enshrine the noble statue of the goddess by Phidias, a standing chryselephantine figure forty feet high. It was the masterpiece of Greek architecture not only by reason of its refinements of detail, but also on account of the beauty of its sculptural adornments. The frieze about the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, representing in low relief with masterly skill the Panathenaic procession; the sculptured groups in the metopes, and the superb assemblages of Olympic and symbolic figures of colossal size in the pediments, added their majesty to the perfection of the architecture. Here also the horizontal curvatures and other refinements are found in their highest development. Northward from it, upon the Acropolis, stood the +Erechtheum+, an excellent example of the Attic-Ionic style (Figs. 35, 36). Its singular irregularities of plan and level, and the variety of its detail, exhibit in a striking way the Greek indifference to mere formal symmetry when confronted by practical considerations. The motive in this case was the desire to include in one design several existing and venerated shrines to Attic deities and heroes--Athena Polias, Poseidon, Pandrosus, Erechtheus, Boutes, etc. Begun by unknown architects in 479 B.C., and not completed until 408 B.C., it remains in its ruin still one of the most interesting and attractive of ancient buildings. Its two colonnades of differing design, its beautiful north doorway, and the unique and noble caryatid porch or balcony on the south side are unsurpassed in delicate beauty combined with vigor of design.[11] A smaller monument of the Ionic order, the amphiprostyle temple to +Nike Apteros+--the Wingless Victory--stands on a projecting spur of the Acropolis to the southwest. It measures only 27 feet by 18 feet in plan; the cella is nearly square; the columns are sturdier than those of the Erechtheum, and the execution of the monument is admirable. It was the first completed of the extant buildings of the group of the Acropolis and dates from 466 B.C.

[Footnote 11: See Appendix, p. 427.]

In the +Propylæa+ (Fig. 37), the monumental gateway to the Acropolis, the Doric and Ionic orders appear to have been combined for the first time (437 to 432 B.C.). It was the master work of Mnesicles. The front and rear façades were Doric hexastyles; adjoining the front porch were two projecting lateral wings employing a smaller Doric order. The central passageway led between two rows of Ionic columns to the rear porch, entered by five doorways and crowned, like the front, with a pediment. The whole was executed with the same splendor and perfection as the other buildings of the Acropolis, and was a worthy gateway to the group of noble monuments which crowned that citadel of the Attic capital. The two orders were also combined in the temple of +Apollo Epicurius+ at +Phigalæa+ (Bassæ). This temple was erected in 430 B.C. by Ictinus, who used the Ionic order internally to decorate a row of projecting piers instead of free-standing columns in the naos, in which there was also a single Corinthian column of rather archaic design, which may have been used as a support for a statue or votive offering.

+ALEXANDRIAN AGE.+ A period of reaction followed the splendid architectural activity of the Periclean age. A succession of disastrous wars--the Sicilian, Peloponnesian, and Corinthian--drained the energies and destroyed the peace of European Greece for seventy-five years, robbing Athens of her supremacy and inflicting wounds from which she never recovered. In the latter part of the fourth century, however, the triumph of the Macedonian empire over all the Mediterranean lands inaugurated a new era of architectural magnificence, especially in Asia Minor. The keynote of the art of this time was splendor, as that of the preceding age was artistic perfection. The Corinthian order came into use, as though the Ionic were not rich enough for the sumptuous taste of the time, and capitals and bases of novel and elaborate design embellished the Ionic temples of Asia Minor. In the temple of +Apollo Didymæus+ at Miletus, the plinths of the bases were made octagonal and panelled with rich scroll-carvings; and the piers which buttressed the interior faces of the cella-walls were given capitals of singular but elegant form, midway between the Ionic and Corinthian types. This temple belongs to the list of colossal edifices already referred to; its dimensions were 366 by 163 feet, making it the largest of them all. The famous +Artemisium+ (temple of Artemis or Diana) measured 342 by 163 feet. Several of the columns of the latter were enriched with sculptured figures encircling the lower drums of the colossal shafts. The most lavish expenditure was bestowed upon small structures, shrines, and sarcophagi. The graceful monument still visible in Athens, erected by the choragus Lysicrates in token of his victory in the choral competitions, belongs to this period (330 B.C.). It is circular, with a slightly domical imbricated roof, and is decorated with elegant engaged Corinthian columns (Fig. 38). In the Imperial Museum at Constantinople are several sarcophagi of this period found at Sidon, but executed by Greek artists, and of exceptional beauty. They are in the form of temples or shrines; the finest of them, supposed by some to have been made for Alexander’s favorite general Perdiccas, and by others for the Persian satrap who figures prominently on its sculptured reliefs, is the most sumptuous work of the kind in existence. The exquisite polychromy of its beautiful reliefs and the perfection of its rich details of cornice, pediment, tiling, and crestings, make it an exceedingly interesting and instructive example of the minor architecture of the period.

+THE DECADENCE.+ After the decline of Alexandrian magnificence Greek art never recovered its ancient glory, but the flame was not suddenly extinguished. While in Greece proper the works of the second and third centuries B.C., are for the most part weak and lifeless, like the +Stoa of Attalus+ (175 B.C.) and the +Tower of the Winds+ (the Clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, 100 B.C.) at Athens or the Portico of Philip in Delos, there were still a few worthy works built in Asia Minor. The splendid +Altar+ erected at +Pergamon+ by Eumenes II. (circ. 180 B.C.) in the Ionic order, combined sculpture of extraordinary vigor with imposing architecture in masterly fashion. At +Aizanoi+ an Ionic +Temple to Zeus+, by some attributed to the Roman period, but showing rather the character of good late Greek work, deserves mention for its elegant details, and especially for its frieze-decoration of acanthus leaves and scrolls resembling those of a Corinthian capital.

+ROMAN PERIOD.+ During this period, _i.e._, throughout the second and first centuries B.C., the Roman dominion was spreading over Greek territory, and the structures erected subsequent to the conquest partake of the Roman character and mingle Roman conceptions with Greek details and _vice versâ_. The temple of the +Olympian Zeus+ at Athens (Fig. 39), a mighty dipteral Corinthian edifice measuring 354 by 171 feet, standing on a vast terrace or temenos surrounded by a buttressed wall, was begun by Antiochus Epiphanes (170 B.C.) on the site of an earlier unfinished Doric temple of the time of Pisistratus, and carried out under the direction of the Roman architect, Cossutius. It was not, however, finally completed until the time of Hadrian, 130 A.D. Meanwhile Sulla had despoiled it of several columns[12] which he carried to Rome (86 B.C.), to use in the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, where they undoubtedly served as models in the development of the Roman Corinthian order. The columns were 57 feet high, with capitals of the most perfect Corinthian type; fifteen are now standing, and one lies prostrate near by. To the Roman period also belong the +Agora Gate+ (circ. 35 B.C.), the +Arch of Hadrian+ (117 A.D.), the +Odeon of Regilla+ or of Herodes Atticus (143 A.D.), at Athens, and many temples and tombs, theatres, arches, etc., in the Greek provinces.

[Footnote 12: L. Bevier, in _Papers of the American Classical School at Athens_ (vol. i., pp. 195, 196), contends that these were columns left from the old Doric temple. This is untenable, for Sulla would certainly not have taken the trouble to carry away archaic Doric columns, with such splendid Corinthian columns before him.]

+SECULAR MONUMENTS; PROPYLÆA.+ The stately gateway by which the Acropolis was entered has already been described. It was the noblest and most perfect of a class of buildings whose prototype is found in the monumental columnar porches of the palace-group at Persepolis. The Greeks never used the arch in these structures, nor did they attach to them the same importance as did most of the other nations of antiquity. The Altis of Olympia, the national shrine of Hellenism, appears to have had no central gateway of imposing size, but a number of insignificant entrances disposed at random. The +Propylæa+ of +Sunium+, +Priene+ and +Eleusis+ are the most conspicuous, after those of the Athenian Acropolis. Of these the Ionic gateway at Priene is the finest, although the later of the two at Eleusis is interesting for its anta-capitals. (_Anta_ = a flat pilaster decorating the end of a wing-wall and treated with a base and capital usually differing from those of the adjacent columns.) These are of Corinthian type, adorned with winged horses, scrolls, and anthemions of an exuberant richness of design, characteristic of this late period.

+COLONNADES, STOÆ.+ These were built to connect public monuments (as the Dionysiac theatre and Odeon at Athens); or along the sides of great public squares, as at Assos and Olympia (the so-called +Echo Hall+); or as independent open public halls, as the +Stoa Diple+ at Thoricus. They afforded shelter from sun and rain, places for promenading, meetings with friends, public gatherings, and similar purposes. They were rarely of great size, and most of them are of rather late date, though the archaic structure at Pæstum, known as the +Basilica+, was probably in reality an open hall of this kind.

+THEATRES, ODEONS.+ These were invariably cut out of the rocky hillsides, though in a few cases (Mantinæa, Myra, Antiphellus) a part of the seats were sustained by a built-up substructure and walls to eke out the deficiency of the hill-slope under them. The front of the excavation was enclosed by a stage and a set scene or background, built up so as to leave somewhat over a semicircle for the _orchestra_ or space enclosed by the lower tier of seats (Fig. 40). An altar to Dionysus (Bacchus) was the essential feature in the foreground of the orchestra, where the Dionysiac choral dance was performed. The seats formed successive steps of stone or marble sweeping around the sloping excavation, with carved marble thrones for the priests, archons, and other dignitaries. The only architectural decoration of the theatre was that of the set scene or _skene_, which with its wing-walls (_paraskenai_) enclosing the stage (_logeion_) was a permanent structure of stone or marble adorned with doors, cornices, pilasters, etc. This has perished in nearly every case; but at Aspendus, in Asia Minor, there is one still fairly well preserved, with a rich architectural decoration on its inner face. The extreme diameter of the theatres varied greatly; thus at Aizanoi it is 187 feet, and at Syracuse 495 feet. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens (finished 325 B.C.) could accommodate thirty thousand spectators.

The odeon differed from the theatre principally in being smaller and entirely covered in by a wooden roof. The +Odeon of Regilla+, built by Herodes Atticus in Athens (143 A.D.), is a well-preserved specimen of this class, but all traces of its cedar ceiling and of its intermediate supports have disappeared.

+BUILDINGS FOR ATHLETIC CONTESTS.+ These comprised stadia and hippodromes for races, and gymnasia and palæstræ for individual exercise, bathing, and amusement. The _stadia_ and _hippodromes_ were oblong enclosures surrounded by tiers of seats and without conspicuous architectural features. The _palæstra_ or _gymnasium_--for the terms are not clearly distinguished--was a combination of courts, chambers, tanks (_piscinæ_) for bathers and _exedræ_ or semicircular recesses provided with tiers of seats for spectators and auditors, destined not merely for the exercises of athletes preparing for the stadium, but also for the instruction and diversion of the public by recitations, lectures, and discussions. It was the prototype of the Roman thermæ, but less imposing, more simple in plan and adornment. Every Greek city had one or more of them, but they have almost wholly disappeared, and the brief description by Vitruvius and scanty remains at Alexandria Troas and Ephesus furnish almost the only information we possess regarding their form and arrangement.

+TOMBS.+ These are not numerous, and the most important are found in Asia Minor. The greatest of these is the famed +Mausoleum+ at Halicarnassus in Caria, the monument erected to the king Mausolus by his widow Artemisia (354 B.C.; Fig. 41). It was designed by Satyrus and Pythius in the Ionic style, and comprised a podium or base 50 feet high and measuring 80 feet by 100 feet, in which was the sepulchre. Upon this base stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns; and crowned by a pyramidal roof, on the peak of which was a colossal marble quadriga at a height of 130 feet. It was superbly decorated by Scopas and other great sculptors with statues, marble lions, and a magnificent frieze. The British Museum possesses fragments of this most imposing monument. At Xanthus the +Nereid Monument+, so called from its sculptured figures of Nereides, was a somewhat similar design on a smaller scale, with sixteen Ionic columns. At Mylassa was another tomb with an open Corinthian colonnade supporting a roof formed in a stepped pyramid. Some of the later rock-cut tombs of Lycia at Myra and Antiphellus may also be counted as Hellenic works.

+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ This never attained great importance in Greece, and our knowledge of the typical Greek house is principally derived from literary sources. Very few remains of Greek houses have been found sufficiently well preserved to permit of restoring even the plan. It is probable that they resembled in general arrangement the houses of Pompeii (see p. 107); but that they were generally insignificant in size and decoration. The exterior walls were pierced only by the entrance doors, all light being derived from one or more interior courts. In the Macedonian epoch there must have been greater display and luxury in domestic architecture, but no remains have come down to us of sufficient importance or completeness to warrant further discussion.

+MONUMENTS.+ In addition to those already mentioned in the text the following should be enumerated:

PREHISTORIC PERIOD. In the Islands about Santorin, remains of houses antedating 1500 B.C.; at Tiryns the Acropolis, walls, and miscellaneous ruins; the like also at Mycenæ, besides various tombs; walls and gates at Samos, Thoricus, Menidi, Athens, etc.

ARCHAIC PERIOD. Doric Temples at Metapontium (by Durm assigned to 610 B.C.), Selinus, Agrigentum, Pæstum; at Athens the first Parthenon; in Asia Minor the primitive Ionic Artemisium at Ephesus and the Heraion at Samos, the latter the oldest of colossal Greek temples.

TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. At Agrigentum, temples of Concord, Castor and Pollux, Demeter, Æsculapius, all circ. 480 B.C.; temples at Selinus and Segesta.

PERICLEAN PERIOD. In Athens the Ionic temple on the Illissus, destroyed during the present century; on Cape Sunium the temple of Athena, 430 B.C., partly standing; at Nemea, the temple of Zeus; at Tegea, the temple of Athena Elea (400? B.C.); at Rhamnus, the temples of Themis and of Nemesis; at Argos, two temples, stoa, and other buildings; all these were Doric.

ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. The temple of Dionysus at Teos; temple of Artemis Leucophryne at Magnesia, both about 330 B.C. and of the Ionic order.

DECADENCE AND ROMAN PERIOD. At Athens the Stoa of Eumenes, circ. 170 B.C.; the monument of Philopappus on the Museum hill, 110 A.D.; the Gymnasium of Hadrian, 114 to 137 A.D.; the last two of the Corinthian order.

THEATRES. Besides those already mentioned there are important remains of theatres at Epidaurus, Argos, Segesta, Iassus (400? B.C.), Delos, Sicyon, and Thoricus; at Aizanoi, Myra, Telmissus, and Patara, besides many others of less importance scattered through the Hellenic world. At Taormina are extensive ruins of a large Greek theatre rebuilt in the Roman period.