Part 3

In the inner room Pausanias saw the trident-mark, naturally near the [Greek: phrear]. The first produced the second, according to Apollodorus, III, 14, 2. Pausanias did not see them [Greek: pro tês esodou] but [Greek: endon]. There is no authority whatever for identifying the marks in the rock beneath the north porch with those made by the trident of Poseidon, except common consent in recent times. If the trident-mark lay within the Erechtheum what deity made that outside, and beneath the porch, a mark which was beyond question an object of cult? "Die Stelle welche Zeus mit seinem Blitze getroffen hatte, wurde mit einem Puteal umgeben und blieb unter freiem Himmel" (Dörpfeld, _Ath. Mitt._, 1903, p. 467). An altar of Zeus Hypatus stood before the entrance. The coincidence of place [Greek: pro tês esodou] and [Greek: en tê prostasei tê pros tou thyrômatos] where, according to the official inscription the altar of the Thyechous stood, outweighs any objection to the identification of the two altars based on difference of name in the two records, [Greek: ho bômos tou thyêchou] and [Greek: Dios bômos Hypatou]. Pausanias departs from the official terminology of building inscriptions. The rotunda at Epidaurus was called in the building inscription [Greek: thymelê] (cf. Cavvadias, [Greek: To Hieron tou Asklêpiou en Epidaurô], p. 50). Pausanias called it [Greek: tholos]. The official name for the Erechtheum does not occur in literature nor in inscriptions except in the report of the commissioners. It is not surprising then if Pausanias failed to call the altar [Greek: ho bômos tou thyêchou]. This name gives not the slightest clue to the god to whom it was erected. The suggestion of Michaelis (_Jb. Arch. Inst._, 1902, p. 17) that the altar may have been one to Poseidon proceeds from the logical idea to make it that of the god who is thought to have made the marks in the rock beneath the porch.

The altar in the north porch was one to Zeus and its presence there suggests the reasonable theory that the marks in the rock below it and the square hole in the roof above are a memorial of the thunderbolt which he hurled at Erechtheus according to Hyginus (_Fab._, 46). _Cf._ Petersen, _op. cit._, p. 72. One cannot say which is the earlier tradition, that preserved in Hyginus or that in Euripides (_Ion_, 281) according to which [Greek: plêgai triainês] thrust Erechtheus into a [Greek: chasma chthonos] (Furtwängler, _Masterpieces_, p. 436, note 3). There was a tradition that Zeus, at the request of Poseidon, killed Erechtheus with a thunderbolt, a tradition which becomes the more interesting in the light of an inscription found on the Acropolis (Lolling, [Greek: Del. Arch.], 1890, p. 144) which proves that an [Greek: abaton Dios Kataibatou] existed there. The stone bearing the inscription was found in a mediaeval wall north of the northeast corner of the Parthenon. Three surfaces of the fragment are preserved showing that it came from a corner perhaps of a low wall enclosing the [Greek: abaton]. One side of the block which is Pentelic marble is finely polished. There are no dowel or clamp-holes preserved and it is impossible to recover the dimensions of the original block. The face which bears the inscription of the late fourth century seems to have been redressed, since chisel marks are evident. The inscription may then have been recut. It is tentatively suggested that this fragment was part of the curb about the opening in the floor of the north porch.

Zeus hurled a thunderbolt which destroyed the chamber of Semele at Thebes and the place was an [Greek: abaton] in the time of Pausanias (IX, 12, 4). When Zeus struck Erechtheus with a thunderbolt, the spot on the Acropolis where the lightning struck may likewise have become an [Greek: abaton]. It is interesting to note that at Olympia, Pausanias (V, 14, 7) saw the foundations of the house of Oenomaus and two altars, one to Zeus Herkeios which Oenomaus seems to have built, the other to Zeus Keraunos erected later, after the thunderbolt had destroyed the house. The persons and palaces of mythical kings appear to have been a favorite mark for the thunderbolt of Zeus. The tradition preserved in Hyginus is an illustration, and tempts one to seek in the vicinity of the Erechtheum for some record of the thunderbolt.

And so too does the notice of the scholiast (after Apollodorus) on Sophocles, _Oed. Col._, 705, who says that near the Academy there was an altar to Zeus Kataibates who was also called Morios: [Greek: estin ho te tou kataibatou Dios bômos on kai Morion kalousin tôn ekei moriôn para to tês Athênas hieron hidrymenôn]. That Zeus Kataibates should have been called [Greek: Morios (moria)] points to some relation with Athena and the olive which may have had its origin on the Acropolis. Does this double name simply mean that Zeus "of sleepless eye" used lightning ([Greek: kataibatês]) to avenge sacrilege which one committed when he violated a sacred olive ([Greek: moria]) as Miss Harrison, _Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens_, p. 599, suggests, or is the key to the explanation furnished by a passage in Pausanias (IX, 12, 4)? Pausanias records the tradition that at the time Zeus hurled the thunderbolt which destroyed Semele and her bridal chamber a log fell from heaven which Polydorus adorned with bronze and called Dionysus Cadmus. Perhaps the ancient image of Athena, the xoanon of olive wood, which fell from heaven, fell at the time Zeus smote Erechtheus, just as the wooden image of Dionysus Cadmus fell when Zeus destroyed Semele. If so, then Zeus Kataibates, by bringing to earth a piece of sacred olive ([Greek: moria]) very naturally acquired the name Zeus Morios.

What known altar to Zeus in the vicinity of the Erechtheum could have been erected to him in his capacity as [Greek: kataibatês]? There was an altar of Zeus Herkeios under the olive in the Pandroseum. This, however, cannot have served as an altar of Zeus Kataibates because these were two distinct phases of the Zeus cult. Pausanias found near the ruins of the palace of Oenomaus at Olympia an altar to Zeus Herkeios and another to Zeus Keraunos (Kataibates). Before the entrance to the Erechtheum Pausanias found an altar to Zeus Hypatus beside the sacred indentations in the rock which lay beneath an opening in the roof, and this is none other than the altar to Zeus Kataibates.

The passage which led from these indentations through the foundation into the temple was not intended for the worshipper but for the priest on occasion. Herein lies a possible explanation of the hole which opens into the passage close to the wall east of the main door. It was perhaps a sort of speaking tube for subterranean utterances. Perhaps beneath the floor of the temple the chthonic Erechtheus was invoked and priestly response heard from above through the opening.

The trident-mark and the well, both destroyed when the mediaeval cistern was cut, were situated in the southwest part of the Erechtheum. Thus evidences produced by Poseidon in the dispute over the land were close to the olive tree of Athena which stood in the Pandroseum. The door in the west wall gave ready access from one to the other.

It has already been remarked that in the description of the Erechtheum, Pausanias gives no indication between the words [Greek: eselthousin] (I, 26, 5) and [Greek: synechês] (I, 27, 2) that he left the building to enter a temple of Athena. The reference to the well and the trident-mark is followed by a compound sentence, the first member ([Greek: men]) of which prepares the way for the more important second member ([Greek: de]) which tells of the [Greek: hagiôtaton ... Athênas agalma]. There is no break here in the continuity of the account and no disturbance of an orderly advance if Pausanias found a means of communication between the inner chamber of the [Greek: diploun oikêma] and the [Greek: naos tês Athênas]. Now the traditional intimacy of Athena and Erechtheus would lead one to expect such communication and thus the cella of Athena which gave the official name to the temple would have a share in the magnificent north portal, the main entrance to the building. The attempts to raise the eastern portico to the dignity of the [Greek: prostasis hê pros tou thyrômatos] are unsatisfactory. Thus Penrose (_op. cit._, p. 95): "It may seem a difficulty to explain why the most magnificent portico should lead to a subordinate shrine, but the eastern portico with its six columns, although of smaller diameter, was scarcely if at all of less importance, and the doorway could not have been much inferior in width and height.... The difference of level also obviously gives preëminence to the eastern site." These considerations neither qualify the difficulty nor do they lessen the preëminent magnificence of the north porch. Apart from the demands of the text of Pausanias, there is another point to be observed. From the north porch there was a doorway opening into the Pandroseum. Thus the north porch gave admission to a temenos, but not according to present theory to the eastern cella of Athena.

In the inner chamber where Pausanias saw the well, he must have found a door, the second of the two mentioned in the Chandler inscription, which opened into the eastern cella (Fig. 7). When he had seen the objects there, he retraced his steps past the well and the mark of the trident, and entered by the small door in the west wall, the Pandroseum, where stood a temple which was [Greek: synechês tô naô tês Athênas]. That Pausanias on approaching the Erechtheum should call it [Greek: Erechtheion] and then on leaving should call it [Greek: naos tês Athênas] is not only quite in keeping with that stylistic tendency which Robert has termed _oratio variata_ (_Pausanias als Schriftsteller_ s.v.) but has a simple and natural explanation. The first name for the temple was that of the western part which he entered first and found to be double; the last name was that of the eastern part which he visited last. The name for the whole was determined by that part which was most prominently in his thought at the time. He gives not the slightest hint that Athena had any share in the temple until he has described the contents of the [Greek: diploun oikêma]. Properly speaking the western part of the building was the Erechtheum, and the eastern, the temple of Athena; but the name of either half spread to the whole, a natural tendency which gave the Parthenon its name, and readily intelligible in the case of the Erechtheum in view of the traditional intimacy of the two divinities recorded in Homer. When Pausanias speaks of the tholos at Epidaurus a second time, he does not call it by that name, but [Greek: oikêma peripheres]. As for the dog of Philochorus, one may believe simply that the creature passed through the Erechtheum proper into the Pandroseum (Petersen, _op. cit._, p. 143).

The theory was at one time put forward that a staircase afforded communication between the western cella and the higher eastern cella, but several considerations establish the fact that they had a common level. The conclusive argument is that there are no cuttings in the rock for the cross-wall between the two cellae, although that rock lay only 1-1.50 m. below the base of the wall. In its rough and sloping surfaces (Fig. 9) there is not a single trace of a bed for a foundation which the supposed heavy cross-wall would demand. The rock betrays no evidences whatever of preparation to receive a foundation. The contention that points of rock were broken off is absurd. The foundations for the outside walls go down to and rest in such beds, that of the west wall being an illustration. Those who believe that the heavy cross-wall supported roof beams besides serving as a terrace wall for the western cella 3 m. lower than the eastern, seem not to have thought that such a wall would need a well cut bed in the rock. Now the east wall, the thinnest in the building, has a foundation which, though it consists of eight courses of heavy poros blocks, rests in deep cuttings in the rock. Under one block of the lowest course, lies a smaller block of poros which also rests in deep cuttings in the rock. Why did not the eastern interior cross-wall likewise have a bed for it cut in the rock, especially since its foundation was so shallow, only two or three courses of poros, and not eight as in the case of the eastern wall? The only bit of outside wall which does not rest in cuttings in the rock is that at the southwest corner, but there the few courses below the lintel of the door rested on an object of cult of some sort which made impossible the normal foundation, while the weight above the lintel rested on the heavy block in the west wall and the firmly founded wall just east of the door.

The champions of the accepted plan of the Erechtheum must explain a striking inconsistency in construction presented by the two interior cross-walls. The western, a screen-wall (D'Ooge, _The Acropolis of Athens_, p. 202) which reached only five courses above the orthostates and supported no other weight whatever, had a foundation which rests partly in cuttings in the rock, while the eastern interior wall which reached quite to the ceiling, supported the weight of it, besides being of the nature of a terrace wall, had a foundation which rested only on the rough and sloping rock. How is this inconsistency to be explained?

The inconsistency cannot be avoided. The logical inference from the facts is one which makes Pausanias intelligible. The eastern cross-wall could not have reached to the ceiling except at the ends where the blocks keyed into the side-walls and shared their foundations. The inference that this wall for its entire length must have been as high as the traces on the side walls is altogether unnecessary. Except at the ends this wall was as high as the other partition-wall, and like it supported no weight. The pilasters lessened a span of thirty feet by perhaps two feet and with the outside walls served to support a heavy cross-beam. Wall-pilasters are not unknown in Greek architecture as the temples of Apollo at Bassae and the Heraeum at Olympia prove (Frazer, _op. cit._, III, p. 589).

Pausanias walked into the cella of Athena from that of Erechtheus without ascending a step. Since all the interior chambers of the Erechtheum had the same level as the north portal it is unnecessary to maintain that he should have entered the Athena cella first on coming from the east. In perfect keeping with the new plan of the interior is the simple sequence of the topographical indications in his description: (1) [Greek: pro tês esodou], (2) [Greek: eselthousin], (3) [Greek: endon (diploun gar estin to oikêma]), (4) [Greek: hagiôtaton agalma] (cf. [Greek: ho neôs en hô to archaion agalma]), (5) [Greek: tô naô de tês Athênas Pandrosou naos synechês].

But what of the protruding poros foundations of the east and south walls and of the unfinished surface of the north wall which have always readily confirmed the theory of a higher level for the cella of Athena? Certainly these were not visible. They must have been concealed behind marble shelves on north and south and marble shelves and steps on the east (Fig. 7). The builders of the Erechtheum were economical, using the foundations of the peristyle of the Hekatompedon as far as possible and then adding blocks of poros to complete a foundation for the south wall of their temple. There was no more need for a wall of marble behind the south shelf than there was for a marble floor beneath the pedestal of the statue in the Parthenon. These shelves were convenient for the exhibition of the many objects deposited in the cella which was a religious museum. The surface of the marble walls is not preserved to a sufficient height to show whether there was any trace of contact with the top of the shelf, just as they can give no positive evidence of a floor at the higher level.

A peculiar cutting in the orthostate at the south-east corner of the temple should be noted in this connection. The cutting is in the interior angle and is so made that the orthostate could be set at this place on a horizontal surface which ran inward. Was this horizontal surface the floor level? Was the floor of the eastern cella raised one step above the threshold as D'Ooge says (_op. cit._, p. 207)? This is unlikely because the floor level would then have been above the base of the orthostates. The horizontal surface was the top of the shelf, for its vertical plane would have courses of the same height as ordinary wall-blocks. There is a Roman block 10 feet long and 1-1/2 feet high which the Christians reused as the base stone of the iconostasis when they converted the Erechtheum into a church. It had a base moulding of some sort which the Christians chiselled off. This long block probably formed part of the lowest course of the facing of the shelf. The fact that its dimensions are those of the [Greek: gongylos lithos athetos, antimoros tais epikranitisin mekos dekapos hyphsos trion hemipodion] (_I. G._, I, 322, col. 1) causes a suspicion that the Roman block simply replaced a Greek one, which in its position at the base of the wall "corresponded to" the [Greek: epikranitides] at the top of it.

An examination of the foundation for the east wall reveals an interesting condition which is unintelligible if the cella of Athena had a higher floor-level than the western cella. In the north-east corner, a marble block of the north wall is cut back to the line of the west face of the poros foundation (Fig. 10). If the marble block lay buried beneath the floor, why was it so carefully trimmed? The explanation may be offered that the cutting was done when the temple was made over into a church. But the chiseling is more careful than the chiseling done at that time in the Erechtheum. When the eastern partition-wall was removed, rough traces of it were left on the side-walls. The treatment of the block in question is Greek in its carefulness and the cutting was probably made to receive a slab of the marble facing which concealed the foundation-blocks of the east wall.

There is another serious difficulty in the way of those who believe that the eastern cella had a higher level than the western. The south wall of the temple had orthostates on the outside but none on the inside where wall-blocks of the usual height took their place. These wall-blocks were easily torn out and have since completely disappeared. In the western chamber orthostates would have been illogical because they would have been high above the level of the floor, but in the eastern cella, if it had the level of the eastern porch orthostates would have been used. Since there were wall-blocks behind the orthostates of the south wall in the western cella, one would reasonably expect orthostates behind wall-blocks in the north wall of the eastern cella, provided that cella was at the level of the eastern porch. But it is absolutely certain that such was not the case. The notched form of the orthostate at the north-east corner of the temple shows that it was in contact with two courses of wall-blocks of regular height in the north wall. Thus the eastern cella, if it lay at the level of its porch strangely lacked interior orthostates in its north and south walls. But if this cella lay at the level of the western cella, the lack becomes at once intelligible. The absence of orthostates at the supposed higher floor-level of the eastern cella combines with the absence of any cutting for a foundation for the wall between the cellae to prove the theory which is in perfect harmony with the simple sequence in the description by Pausanias.

The theory of one level within the Erechtheum seems to contradict and to be contradicted by the evidence which Stevens has found of a door in the east wall (_A. J. A._, 1906, p. 58 ff.). The contradiction is not necessary, for a flight of steps at the east end of the cella of Athena is perfectly possible. The construction of an apse for the church at the east end of the temple necessitated the removal of a number of foundation-blocks which might have given evidence of steps. However it is quite possible that the foundations for the steps which had no need to rest in rock cuttings were simply laid against, not keyed into the foundations of the east wall. The stairs are drawn in the plan (Fig. 7). The idea of a stair-case at the east end of a cella is illustrated by the temple at Didyma. The eastern door of the Erechtheum was not the normal, not the intended entrance to the cella of Athena, but served as the traditional eastern entrance toward which the xoanon faced. Pausanias like other visitors entered by the [Greek: prostasis hê pros tou thyrômatos], the main entrance to the temple.

It is interesting to note some evidence which shows that in the period before the Erechtheum was converted into a Christian church there was no difference of level within the building, namely, the masses of rubble masonry which were placed close to the north wall at approximately equal distances from the eastern cross-wall. They are firmly founded on the rock and reach up nearly to the base of the orthostates. They have no counterparts along the south wall. The screen-wall of the north aisle of the church stood directly over one of the masses. The threshold of it is still in place. These heavy foundations and the interior longitudinal walls of the church cannot be contemporary. The latter were sufficient to carry the weight of the roof of the church; and the screen-wall in the aisle, since it rests partly on a filling of earth, shows that the heavy foundation of rubble masonry underneath had ceased to serve any purpose after the church was built. It was there before that time and therefore must have been laid in a Roman period when the level within the temple was the same.

Any discussion of the workmanship of this mass of stones and mortar has no bearing on the question of its date and that of the threshold above. The point is, the masonry is earlier than the Christian church, and quite embarrasses the advocates of a higher level for the eastern cella in the period before the conversion of the temple into a Christian church. This foundation then is perfectly intelligible in the light of the theory that in Greek times there was but one level within the temple. What the purpose of this rubble masonry was is uncertain. The substantial and solid character of the masses leads one to believe that they were foundations for piers or pillars which reached to the top of the adjacent wall and together with it supported heavy cross-beams which spanned the cella from north to south. The idea may have come to the Romans from the Greek pilaster which as noted above lay approximately midway between the masses of rubble masonry. This was, then, apparently a device for reducing the span from the north to the south wall. The fact that this masonry was laid before the period of the church is of far greater importance than its purpose.