History of Ancient Art Part 9

All these changes were primarily caused by the Doric entablature not having been created for the peripteros; it was necessary thus to fit it for decorative employment.

The metopes were originally open interstices between the beams; intertrabies, as they might be called, with reference to the intercolumniations; having, upon the peripteros, been closed within and without by light slabs, the votive offerings, formerly placed in the apertures, were now superseded by sculptures in relief upon these stones, which gave to the entire entablature--or, when the carving was restricted, to that of the fronts--an imposing decoration. A continuous band, like that beneath the triglyphs, terminated the frieze; but the individuality of triglyph and metope was even here maintained, the superposed member being broken around them, as a separate coronation for each.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 138.--Scheme of the Doric Entablature.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 139.--Plan and Elevation of the so-called Temple of Theseus, Athens.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 140.--Painting upon the Pteroma of the Temple of Theseus.]

The cornice showed reminiscences of the projecting eaves by its corona being cut with a downward slant, such as would never have been invented for the treatment of stone. That this inclination was not precisely the same as the pitch of the roof rafters cannot be adduced as an argument against its fundamental idea; in the marble structure there was nothing to call for so exact a resemblance. The decoration of the lower surface of the corona shows the original motive of its wooden construction as distinctly expressed as was the formation of the triglyph in the frieze.

The position of the ends of the rafters, beneath the sheathing, is marked by boards, each being pinned upon it with eighteen wooden pegs.

From the duplication of the triglyphs in the stone building there resulted an equal number of mutules, and these were still further multiplied by being placed over each metope--this latter increase having been at first attempted with members of half the normal width, as at _Fig._ 136. The whole composition was thus the more richly divided the higher the building ascended; upon one column rested two triglyphs and four mutules. It is further remarkable that, to make the decoration harmonious upon all sides of the edifice, these mutules were also introduced upon the front and rear entablatures; this repet.i.tion, with the inclination of the corona upon the fronts, naturally without a gutter, must be regarded as a further concession, made, contrary to the genetic signification of members, in favor of the monumental appearance of the entire exterior. The corona is bordered by the so-called Doric cyma, or beak-moulding, distantly resembling the scotia of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The concluding gutter is of a beautifully curved outline.

When it occurs upon the sides of the building, where it is frequently restricted to the corners, it is provided with lions' heads, which, arranged over the columns as gargoyles, throw from their open jaws the rain-water of the roof beyond the steps of the crepidoma. An isolated instance--the Heraion of Olympia, which seems never to have been provided with a stone entablature--shows that the timbered roof and ceiling were placed at times with a wooden epistyle directly upon the stone columns of a peripteros. The covering of the roof was formed, in the best period, by flat marble tiles, the joints of which were covered by smaller curved blocks, running from ridge to eaves, and terminated over the cornice by antefixes. The apex and corners of the gable were provided with acroteria, standing upon special bases. They are reminiscences of an ancient usage of Western Asia: those of the corners found their origin in the ornaments of primitive altars and sarcophagi, known in Biblical accounts as horns. They were sometimes supplanted by votive offerings suited to the position, such as tripods, or by griffins and other symbolical figures. The pointed acroterium of the apex was usually the whole of the two half-anthemions represented upon those of the corners; in larger monuments it was often replaced by statues, just as extended compositions of figures were created for the tympanon beneath, as a subst.i.tute for the dedicated objects which appear to have originally filled the gable.

The polychromy of the Doric temple was one of the most important features of its external appearance. It is probable that the greater part of its marble surface, possibly the whole, was colored. Our Northern conceptions can with difficulty comprehend the full value of this treatment in the general composition; in our gray landscape, a building thus painted might appear harsh and variegated. The color of the lower supporting members was restricted to a light tint, the so-called baphe, which had first been applied to the stucco priming necessary for the coa.r.s.e and porous stone of older temples, and was afterwards transferred from this to the marble of later monuments. It stained the surface with a light golden-brown tint, moderating the harsh chalky white of lime stucco, or of marble, and investing the newly erected building with the patina by which age always modulates the color of stone. This baphe was employed for the marble temple on account of the traditional painting of the stucco priming, because of the too dazzling white natural to the freshly hewn material, and, finally, in order to harmonize the columns and stylobate with the intensely rich colors of the entablature. Dark and positive pigments were restricted to the frieze and cornice, having, without doubt, been first employed to preserve the original wooden material. The beams and slat-work, like the triglyphs with their regulas and the mutules, were designated by blue; the trunnels were red or gilded. That which had at first been open was treated as a dark-red background; the metopes and tympanon thus clearly outlining the reliefs and groups of statues which ornamented them. The continuous members were treated with particular richness; the narrower strips were painted with the meander and other woven forms; the gutter with anthemions; while the Doric cyma was decorated with leaves of various colors, so artistically conventionalized as but little to resemble nature. The inner side of the entablature was still more richly colored. (_Fig._ 140.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 141.--Coffered Pteroma Ceiling of the Southern Temple upon the Eastern Plateau of Selinous. Restoration.]

One of the most wonderful refinements of Greek architecture was the attention paid to optical deceptions, and the correction of these by the curvature of all straight and horizontal lines. It has been mentioned that the peripteral columns did not stand mathematically upright, all the axes being inclined inwards; the discovery of this fact was followed by a publication, made by the architect Hoffer in 1838, which maintained that no perfectly level line existed upon the entire temple, the horizontals being curved slightly upwards. Hoffer's a.s.sertions were verified by the micrometrical studies made by Penrose, in 1846, upon the Parthenon, the so-called Theseion, the Propylaea, Erechtheion, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, and afterwards upon the temples of Nemea and Segesta. His measurements make evident a curvature of 0.069 m.

in 30.876 m. upon the front of the Parthenon, and of 0.108 m. in 69.525 m. upon its sides. Though so very slight a deviation is not readily apparent, there are no mathematically rectangular forms upon the entire building; the corner metopes are, for instance, trapezoidal. Whether these curves, the existence of which is not to be denied, were really intentional, was questioned by Boetticher, but it has been proved beyond a doubt by the further investigations of Ziller. The motive for the adoption of refinements, so extraordinarily delicate and difficult of execution, was the same desire to correct displeasing optical deceptions which prompted the entasis of the columns and the inclination of their axes from the vertical. The apparent deviation of the lines, sagging from the horizontal, was most disagreeably apparent upon the front entablature--the base of the gable triangle, which, when straight, invariably appears concave, while a corona, in reality curved upwards, presents itself to the eye as perfectly level. By a deviation from the absolutely horizontal, the appearance of greater correctness was attained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 142.--Fragments of Coffered Ceilings from the Parthenon.

_A._ From the Side Pteroma. _B._ From the Epinaos.]

The peripteral columns of the Doric style worthily express the peculiar character of the Dorians by their simple dignity. By them a pa.s.sage was formed around the cella, the pteroma, the ceiling of which was most richly decorated with cofferings. (_Fig._ 141.) So short a span was here required of the horizontal beams that it was possible to translate them into stone simultaneously with the outer entablature; this seems to have been universal in the larger peripteral temples, that of Zeus in Olympia possibly being an exception. The ceiling did not remain in its original position, resting upon the epistyle, but, with the increased dimensions of the stone frieze, was considerably elevated. The s.p.a.ces between the lintels were closed by slabs of stone which retained the form of the original wooden cofferings, being hollowed by stepped lacunae, diminis.h.i.+ng in size. A transitional moulding was placed in each angle formed by a vertical and horizontal surface. Upon the coffered ceilings of Attic monuments (_Fig._ 142) this member is the Lesbian cyma, supplemented by an astragal, these signs of an Ionic influence being further noticeable in other parts of these buildings. The wall of the cella, though surrounded by the pteroma, still bears traces of the entablature, which, as shown above, preceded the outstanding columns; the triglyphs and metopes are repeated, or in their place is a frieze of sculptured reliefs, in which the isolated carvings of the metope become continuous and connected. At times there remain beneath the latter the taenia, regulas, and trunnels--only to be explained and justified as the reminiscences of portions of an originally well-founded decoration which had, in part, been gradually supplanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 143.--Plan of the Middle Temple upon the Acropolis of Selinous.]

The cella itself, within the pteroma, appears in plan either without columns, as a temple in antis, as a prostylos, or as an amphiprostylos, thus supporting the a.s.sumption that these were the original forms of its development. The cella was often greatly increased in length; this made its transverse division desirable, and there resulted the front portico, or p.r.o.naos, the princ.i.p.al hall of the temple, or naos, and the s.p.a.ce part.i.tioned off at the rear, called, a.n.a.logically, the epinaos. An especial chamber of the building was at times isolated to serve as a treasury; this was known as the opisthodomos. (_Fig._ 143.) The p.r.o.naos, whether with or without columns, was closed, if at all, only by a light bronze grating; from it a wide portal, occupying almost the entire division wall, opened into the naos. Its upper part was fixed, but entrance was afforded through its lower part by folding wings. The grooves worn by the doors are still visible upon the Parthenon floor.

The interior was disproportionately narrow, a result of the peripteral enclosure and of the limitations imposed by the gable, which would have become too high and heavy if the front had been greatly widened in favor of the interior breadth; moreover, the horizontal ceiling was unfavorable to width, which was limited to the natural span of the beams.

The possibility of admitting much light had been given up with the change in the position of the entablature and metopes. Notwithstanding the size of the door, sufficient daylight could not enter through this; it was itself in the shadow of the pteroma, and generally, also, of a p.r.o.naos. But little illumination was required for the small chapel when this served solely as a receptacle for the sacred image. A dim and mystical twilight was easily obtained by the use of one or more perpetually burning lamps, which could only have been favorable to the artistically unpretentious interior. It was otherwise with the larger and more important temples, opened for festive a.s.semblages. Their interiors were divided by architectural members, and contained manifold works of art and objects of value--a varied richness, which called for an increased splendor of light, possible only by artificial illumination.[G]

In the desire to increase the available s.p.a.ce of the temple interior, the enclosing walls were advanced more closely to the columns of the peripteros, thus decreasing the width of the pteroma; while the hall was divided by two rows of inner shafts into three aisles, the outer two of which, considerably narrower than the middle, were part.i.tioned into two stories by the introduction of galleries, accessible by staircases at either side of the chief portal.

We now turn from this general consideration of the Doric style to a review of the princ.i.p.al monuments remaining, dividing them, as well as possible, into groups representative of certain ages and periods of development. The oldest peripteral temples known are not situated in Greece proper, but in the early colonies upon the coasts of Magna Graecia and Sicily. They are distinguishable from later buildings by a nave freedom of form and the lack of any strictly systematical development--any canonical type. The carving of details is as careful as the coa.r.s.e and porous limestone permits. The columns stand so far apart that the low and heavy proportion of the whole is not altered by the comparatively high stylobate. The great distance of the shafts from the wall reduces the naos to a corridor-like narrowness, the more noticeable as the whole temple plan is very long. (_Fig._ 143.) The columns themselves are low, never having a height greater than five lower diameters. The monolithic shaft is much diminished, and has an excessive entasis; it is provided with twenty, or in rare instances sixteen, channels of segmental outline. The incisions beneath the capital block, bordering the hypotrachelion, are generally multiplied, often being three in number. The necking upon the columns of Sicilian temples is not merely the straight commencement of the channellings, but often forms, under the rings, a slight scotia--the apophyge--which weakly detaches the echinos from the shaft by interrupting its organic connection. The echinos has too great a projection; its outline is soft, and the small rings are placed too high. The entire capital appears powerless and flat: on this account the thickness of the entablature has not been increased; the outer and inner surfaces of the epistyle do not project beyond the upper diameter of the shaft. The members of the entablature are exceedingly high and heavy, as are the details, down to the trunnels and cyma. The frieze alone is low, and the metopes consequently small, being framed by ma.s.sive triglyphs, the chamferings of which have circular or lanceolate endings. The mutules above the triglyphs have the same great breadth; in one instance there remains above the metope only s.p.a.ce for half a mutule. (_Fig._ 136.) The polychromy is, in general, sombre--yellow-brown and black, with little red, being the colors chiefly employed; the patterns of the ornaments are distinctly of Oriental origin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 144.--Northern Temple upon the Acropolis of Selinous.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 145.--Middle Temple upon the Acropolis of Selinous.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 146.--Temple of a.s.sos.]

The most prominent monuments of this cla.s.s are at Selinous, upon the western extremity of Sicily. That city was founded in 628 B.C.: its acropolis appears to have been early occupied by temples; at least the northernmost of these buildings, with the widest intercolumniations, of two and two thirds lower diameter, and the most s.p.a.cious pteroma, dates from the commencement of the sixth century B.C. The middle temple of the acropolis appears scarcely fifty years younger; it is celebrated for the primitive reliefs of its metopes, which will be considered in the section upon Greek sculpture. A corner of the building is given above, _Fig._ 136; its capital is _Fig._ 145. A third example of this earliest period of development--which is designated by Semper as the laxly archaic style--is known under the name Tavola dei Palladini, and stands among the ruins of the Elian colony, Metapontion, a city founded as early as 768 B.C., but entirely rebuilt in 586 B.C., after its destruction by the original inhabitants of Lower Italy. The fifteen columns at present upright probably date from the sixth century B.C. The intercolumniations are wide, the shafts excessively diminished, and the curve of the echinos too p.r.o.nounced. It is difficult to decide whether to this cla.s.s may belong the remains of the temple at Cadacchio upon Corfu (Corkyra), and of that built of lava at a.s.sos, in the Troad.

(_Fig._ 146.) The former has been greatly disfigured by a late restoration, and it is not at present possible to determine the date of the latter, known only by insufficient publications.

The next advances of temple architecture consist in placing the higher columns more nearly together and in heightening and narrowing the triglyphs. The elegance of proportion and detail was thus considerably increased. Ionic elements were first introduced in this period, greatly to the advantage of the style, which is designated as the archaic. An example is the middle temple upon the eastern plateau of Selinous, where the columns are cut with Ionic flutes. It is also important in the history of sculpture from the remains of metopes carved with scenes of the gigantomachia. (_Fig._ 147.) Of similar character is the great uncompleted Temple of Zeus upon the same plateau, 110 m. long and 50 m.

broad, with three aisles and galleries in the interior (_Fig._ 148); and also the so-called Chiesa di Sansone at Metapontion, of which small temple there are only few and scattered remains. A third Doric temple of this site, discovered during the last few months, is as yet inedited. It is uncertain whether the Temple of Artemis upon the island of Syracuse (Ortygia) should be reckoned with this group.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 147.--Middle Temple upon the Eastern Plateau of Selinous.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 148.--Temple of Zeus upon the Eastern Plateau of Selinous.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 149.--So-called Temple of Heracles, Acragas.]

One example of the epoch exists in Greece proper--the Temple of Corinth.

Its columns were once heavily primed with stucco, and are now so weathered that it is impossible to draw any definite conclusions from them. The outline of the capital is primitive, though not in the degree formerly supposed, when this ruin was thought to be the oldest monument of the Doric style. The two last-mentioned remains and the Temple of Athene upon the island Ortygia have the heaviest and lowest proportions, the lower diameter of the columns comparing to the height as 1 to 4.27 (Athene), 1 to 4.29 (Artemis), and 1 to 4.32 (Corinth).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 150.--So-called Temple of Theseus, Athens.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 151.--Porticus of Philip, Delos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 152.--So-called Temple of Demeter, Paestum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 153.--Plan of the Great Temple of Pstum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 154.--Plan, Section, and Elevation of the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Acragas.]

The Temple of Zeus at Selinous was the first of a number of colossal structures, in which the architectural ability of the Greeks, by that time thoroughly schooled, sought also to develop itself in enormous size. The hexastyle front was increased to the octastyle, thus permitting wider dimensions of the cella, which still, however, did not attain the greatest possible extent, the architect being unwilling to reduce the breadth of the pteroma. The columns became even shorter and thicker; they were less diminished and had a more delicately adjusted entasis; the intercolumniations were increased. The separation of the capital from the shaft by an apophyge was abandoned; the entasis was made steeper and of a more vigorous outline. The disproportionately high and weak triglyphs are especially characteristic of this stage of development; with the exception of these, the entablature still remained low and heavy. Marble came more and more into use as a building-stone; the execution of details in stucco was rarer. The new material did not limit the use of color, which, in place of the former tones, became brighter--red, blue, and yellow prevailing. The most imposing, because the best-preserved, of these colossal works is the magnificent Temple of Pstum, with its two stories of inner columns partly intact. (_Fig._ 153.) The triglyphs have not as yet disappeared from the walls of the cella, but otherwise the construction shows no primitive traits, being fully fitted for its execution in stone.

Resembling this in many points is the Temple of Acragas, or Agrigentum, termed that of Heracles. (_Fig._ 149.) The great Temple of Zeus of the same city was of the most gigantic dimensions ever attempted in the sacred architecture of the Greeks. It was also, unfortunately, even greater than was really practicable for a trabeated construction in such a building-material, and consequently became a monstrosity. The temple was heptastyle, that is, had seven columns upon the front, which rendered impossible the normal entrance in the middle. It differed still more decidedly from other Greek temples in that the cella was not surrounded by an open pteroma, the outstanding columns being supplanted by a wall decorated with engaged shafts. It would be difficult to decide whether this peculiar pseudo-peripteros owed its conformation to the building-stone at disposal, only to be quarried in blocks too short for the lintels of the pteroma, or whether other considerations led to this abnormal negation of the fundamental principles of columnar architecture, which here has no relation to the better-founded practices of Roman builders in the application of engaged shafts. The transformation of the pteroma made an entire change in the general disposition of plan; but too little of the building now remains above ground to render its arrangement certain. If door-openings be a.s.sumed at both sides of the middle column, as in the ill.u.s.tration, this would have been possible only upon the west, the middle column of the east--the customary entrance-front--being proved by the remains to have been engaged. It is not probable that windows existed in the wall between the columns; the supposition is more natural that some of the side metopes were unclosed, and provided the pteroma with sufficient daylight. This would have been no innovation, but rather, in this case, where it was impossible to execute the open peripteros, a return to the original method of illumination through the interstices between the beams upon the top of the cella wall. The before-mentioned Temple of Athene upon the island of Ortygia is another Sicilian example belonging to this archaic period of gigantic dimensions.

The two colossal monuments of Athens, built during the second half of the sixth century, are more important, although the older Parthenon upon the acropolis, if, indeed, ever completed, could not have stood longer than half a century, and the Doric temple of Olympian Zeus was discontinued before its construction had far advanced. A comparison of a fragment of the earlier building with the entablature of the present Parthenon shows how disproportionately high were the triglyphs and how heavy and broad the taenia and regulas of the archaic period. (_Fig._ 155.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 155.--Entablatures of the Older and Present Parthenon.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 156.--Plan of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.]

The exercise of the designer's individual ability in these works, and the hieratic retention of every constructive and aesthetic gain thus obtained, prepared for the fullest perfection of the Doric style. The advance was effected by a slight attenuation of the too ma.s.sive columns, a further reduction of the height of the entablature, and an increase in the projection of the smaller decorative members. The temples built during, or shortly after, the time of the Persian wars show the gradual introduction of these changes. Among the Sicilian remains of this period are the uncompleted Temple of Segesta, the so-called Temple of Concordia at Acragas, and the six peripteral temples upon the acropolis and eastern plateau of Selinous not previously mentioned. Among those of Greece proper, the Temple of Athene upon aegina and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (_Fig._ 156) are most prominent. The frieze of triglyphs was omitted from the cella walls of the Temple of aegina, but the regulas and trunnels were retained with curious effect: it is as though the designer were only slowly and with difficulty led to give up, one by one, the traditions of a primitive wooden construction. The date of the building of the Olympian temple is uncertain, but the name of its architect, Libon, of Elis, has been handed down, with one exception the earliest connected with Greek architecture. The recent excavations have entirely exposed the overthrown ruins. They show that the forms of the edifice are more primitive than would have been expected from the age in which Pheidias completed the celebrated chryselephantine statue of the temple deity. It is possible that the advance of the building was slow, or that there were long interruptions of the work before its final completion.

An especially important result of the investigations is the evidence that an enclosed aedicula for the statue of Zeus, hitherto advocated by restorers because of the supposed opening in the roof and ceiling for light, did not exist, the interior having been divided into three aisles like the great Temple of Paestum. The proportions of the peripteros were of great vigor and beauty. It was built of poros, with the exception of the metope reliefs upon the fronts of the cella, and the carved gutter and roof tiles, which were of marble. This so-called poros, a stone almost exclusively employed for the earlier buildings of the Greeks, is a rough sh.e.l.l conglomerate, usually brought to a surface by a heavy priming of stucco. The floor of the pteroma of the great temple at Olympia was of a pebble cement, the small inner staircases of wood.

While the architecture of the Peloponnesos still retained traces of the archaic style, the highest perfection of Doric forms was attained in Attica, reaching its fulfilment at a time, after the Persian wars, when the political supremacy of Athens was far greater than that ever enjoyed by any state of the world so restricted in territory. The deserved sovereignty of Athens over Greece, its naval power, imposing even to the Orientals of Western Asia and Egypt, and, finally, the necessity and opportunity of rebuilding the Attic capital after its destruction by the Persians, before the decisive battle of Salamis, caused a monumental rebirth of the n.o.ble city, which not only became the cla.s.sic model in those ages throughout the extent of Greece and its colonies upon distant sh.o.r.es, but the highest ideal of architecture to the present day and for the entire future of the human race. Attica was fitted to cultivate equally the artistic peculiarities of the two branches of the h.e.l.lenic stock, its Ionic population being intermingled, in a marked degree, with Doric elements. It had attained the highest development of civilization, and was the home of the most famed artists. By the taxes levied upon the eastern mainland and the islands of the Archipelago, Athens had almost unlimited means at its disposal. To this nature added the incomparable marble building-material, quarried almost before the gates of the city, which indeed possessed all the conditions requisite for the first monumental capital of Greece and of the civilized world. Familiarity with the Ionic style did not permit that heaviness and clumsiness of architectural members observable upon the contemporaneous temples of the Peloponnesos. The columns of the Temple of aegina had been allowed a height as great as 5.3 times their lower diameter. In the Doric buildings of Athens this was still further increased, the so-called Temple of Theseus having the proportion of 5.62 to 1, the Parthenon as 5.47 to 1. The diminution and entasis of the shaft were reduced to just relations; the delicate curve of the latter, as demanded by the optical deception it was to correct, was greatest below the half height of the column. The channellings no longer remained segmental arcs, but received an independently designed, elliptical profile. The echinos became steeper, rising in an almost straight line to the firm and sharp turn beneath the abacus. The triglyphs, returning slightly to former proportions, became broader than those of the preceding period; smaller members were diminished in height, but were made more projecting. The colors of the entablature became still more intense; blue and red predominated; green was also employed, and gilding appeared upon the trunnels and in the beautifully composed surface patterns. Ionic elements, almost entirely disused during the latter ages, reappeared in very general employment, especially in the deep cofferings of the pteroma ceiling and upon the capitals of the pilasters.

The typical monuments of this Attic Doric style are the so-called Theseion, and the Parthenon and Propylaea of the Athenian acropolis. The first of these buildings (_Fig._ 139) was certainly not sacred to Theseus; its dedication is not surely known. It preceded the highest perfection, still betraying some slight archaic influences. The triglyphs are too high, the smaller members, notably the regulas and trunnels, too heavy. Ionic elements are freely introduced. Besides the coffering of the pteroma ceiling and the before-mentioned pilaster capitals, there was an Ionic zophoros, or continuous frieze of figures, bordered above and below by leaved cyma-mouldings and astragals, in place of the Doric entablature usually employed, at least in part, upon the walls of the cella. The ornamental painting was extended to the capitals of the pteroma columns (_Fig._ 150), which bore a series of leaves, and to the walls, the interior of the naos having been prepared for the reception of pigments. The perfect preservation of the building is owing to its early transformation into a Christian church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 157.--Plan of the Parthenon.]

The Parthenon far surpa.s.sed the Theseion in artistic perfection; it was, indeed, worthy the superintendence of a Pheidias. Its architect, Ictinos, conceived his work to stand so high above contemporary buildings that he celebrated it in an especial monograph, mentioned by Vitruvius, though, unfortunately, not consulted by him. The dimensions of the octastyle temple were imposing; the edge of the stylobate measured about 30 by 68 m.; elevated upon the steep acropolis, it could be seen from a great distance. Though its site was not limited, the economy of s.p.a.ce was carried to an extreme. The intercolumniations are narrow, especially those of the front; the pteroma was thus reduced in breadth to less than one and one half times the lower diameter of the columns. (_Fig._ 157.) The p.r.o.naos and epinaos had no side walls, the cella being amphiprostyle, enclosed by high grilles. The depth of these vestibules was less than one quarter of their breadth. The remaining interior was part.i.tioned into two chambers of unequal size: the naos and the opisthodomos, the latter of which served as a treasury. The naos was divided by ranges of columns into three chief aisles, and the gallery over the sides was carried across the nave, next to the rear wall. The world-renowned chryselephantine statue of Athene, 12 m. high, stood before the transverse columns, between which and the part.i.tion there was allowed a pa.s.sage, nearly equal in breadth to the side aisles. The stairs to the gallery may, from the a.n.a.logies of the great temples of Olympia and Paestum, be a.s.sumed to have existed at either side of the entrance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 158.--Plan and View of the Propylaea, Athens.]

The Propylaea of the Athenian acropolis, by which the architect Mnesicles made his name immortal, were not less perfect than the Parthenon. Work upon them was begun shortly before the completion of the latter building, in 438 B.C., and occupied five years. Ionic members had frequently been employed upon Doric structures, but the Propylaea offer the first instance of a combination of the styles in almost equal proportions: the interior of these gates was entirely Ionic, the exterior entirely Doric. (_Figs._ 120 and 158.) Six Ionic columns bore the famed marble ceiling of great span, while two Doric porticos formed the fronts. The stone-cutting of all the monuments upon the Athenian acropolis was incomparably exact and beautiful, as was the harmony of their proportions and forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 159.--Plan of the Temple of Apollo at Ba.s.sae.]

The Temple of Phigalia, or Ba.s.sae, in Arcadia, though stated to have been built by the architect of the Parthenon, shows that the perfection of the monuments last considered was possible only upon Attic ground. The sanctuary of Arcadia was dedicated to Apollo Epicourios in grat.i.tude for the deliverance of the district from the plague of 431 B.C. Its plan (_Fig._ 159) was excessively long, having fifteen side columns, with a hexastyle front. The elevation offers a remarkable combination of archaic traditional forms and of exaggerated novelties. Though the three incisions of the capital necking are peculiarly primitive, the echinos has become even steeper than it was upon the Parthenon. Ionic sculptured ornaments begin to appear upon the entablature. The inward inclination of the axes of the columns and the curvature of the horizontals have been neglected in Ba.s.sae, as if the architect had not considered it worth while to display such refinements to the uncultivated Arcadians. In the interior of the temple Ionic columns are engaged upon short transverse walls, which project from the sides. These are so remarkably archaic in form (_Fig._ 165) that it is difficult to explain how Athenian architects, who must have been familiar with the interior columns of the Propylaea and those of the Erechtheion, then in course of construction, could have prepared the designs. An extremely ancient and undeveloped Corinthian capital (_Fig._ 176) has been found among the ruins of Ba.s.sae; it will be referred to below. Many of the anomalies of the temple would be explained by the a.s.sumption that the building occupied the site of a former chapel, the entrance to which had naturally been upon the east, and that the lack of available ground prevented the retention of the original and usual orientation, making the peripteros, as the enlargement of a former fane, open the inner chamber of the naos upon one of the long sides.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 160.--Plan of the Temenos of Eleusis.]