History of Ancient Art Part 10

Other Attic remains, some of which date from the end of the fifth century, also show traces of the deterioration of the art. Chief among these are the Propylaea of Eleusis and the house of a.s.semblage for those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, known as the Telesterion, a square hypostyle hall, fronted by a portico of twelve columns, apparently without a gable. (_Fig._ 160.) It is not known how soon after the Persian wars the temples of Rhamnous and Sunion were rebuilt; they may have slightly preceded the age of decline. The increasing love of magnificence and luxury felt among the Greeks was not satisfied with the simple majesty of the Doric style; the Ionic was more and more frequently subst.i.tuted in preference. The latter had been employed for the Propylaea of the Athenian acropolis, and had appeared independently in smaller temples, and, finally, in the national shrine of Attica, the Erechtheion. The Doric became restricted to porticos and peristyles, and, in double-storied interiors, to the lower order, for which important constructional functions it was fitted by the great solidity of the column. But the desire to simplify the execution of Doric members, and reduce the expense which must have been attendant upon the delicate refinements of curvatures, introduced dry and hard geometrical forms, and the aesthetic value of the style was, for the greater part, lost. An example of this debas.e.m.e.nt is offered by the portico of Philip upon Delos, where the echinos projects in an absolutely straight line.

(_Fig._ 151.) In the colonies, upon the other hand, even as late as the Roman period, the style was archaistically treated, with a provincial lack of good taste, ill.u.s.trated by the weak echinos and apophyge of the capital of the so-called Temple of Demeter at Paestum. (_Fig._ 152.)

An entirely different manner of building had early appeared by the side of the Doric style, which cannot be accounted of quite equal birth with that eldest male offspring of h.e.l.lenic civilization, but, to carry out the simile, should rather be considered as a step-sister. The development of the peripteral plan, the echinos coronation of the channelled shafts, and the entablature of triglyphs, metopes, and mutules, appear autochthonic and purely Greek; while the Ionic style, though adopting the plan and general disposition of the former, was, in its most characteristic details, an importation from Asia. It is not meant by this that the perfected style was not characteristically h.e.l.lenic. The Greeks accepted none of the products of their neighbors without a change--a transformation of disposition and detail by their peculiar genius. But the fundamental motives, the elements of the style, in as far as these are not identified with the Doric, had been taken from neighboring Eastern lands of primitive civilization: from the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria.

The Ionic column betrays this relationship in both base and capital. The former consists fundamentally of a tore elevated upon a drum, usually hollowed by a scotia. This tore was employed as a footing for the columns of Nineveh, and is familiar through one example and through representations upon reliefs. From thence it was transplanted to Persia, where, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., it appears with the horizontal channelling found upon the more primitive Ionic monuments.

(_Fig._ 79.) The concave profile of the under plinth is new and h.e.l.lenic. The delicate perception of the Greek designer recognized the advantage of this scotia over the clumsy heaviness which had resulted from the tore being placed immediately upon the ground or upon a rectangular slab, and the lower member was made to harmonize with the channelled moulding above it by the emphasis of horizontal lines. It is uncertain whether the slender proportions of the Ionic shaft, so marked in comparison with the strength of the Doric style, is to be attributed to Oriental influences. It agreed as well with the light Ionic entablature and ceiling as did the powerful Doric column with the great weight imposed upon it; and it may be regarded as one of the principles of architectural construction that the strength of the support has ever been originally determined by the weight of the ceiling and superstructure: the column has been adapted to the entablature, not the height of epistyle, frieze and cornice to the diameter of the shaft.

With this consideration agreed the desire to attain great elegance and lightness of proportion, peculiar to the Ionic race. The Ionic column, thus made of greater proportional height, had diminution and entasis like the Doric. It differed remarkably in the fluting. A vertical grooving cannot be traced upon the columns of a.s.syria; upon those of Persia it is similar to the Doric channels, with sharp arrises. The development of the flute itself may perhaps be deemed peculiarly Greek.

As painted ornaments were gradually given up, they were replaced by architectural carvings; such sculptured decorations were harmoniously introduced upon the shaft, and the channels were deepened to a semicircular profile. This rendered a change of the arrises necessary, for if the ends of the arcs were to have ab.u.t.ted, as upon the Doric column, the deep flute, with its extremely sharp edge, could only have been executed upon a plane. Upon a convexly curved surface, like that of the cylindrical drums, it would have been impossible to cut semicircular grooves immediately adjoining, as their outlines would have intersected.

The sharp arrises were therefore relinquished, and a broad vertical band, the surface of the original cylinder, was left in its place, the play of light and shade which enlivened the body of the shaft being increased by these flutings, but the evidence of the derivation of the channelled column from the polygonal pier was entirely sacrificed, the cylindrical form being characterized as original by the remaining fillets. The carving of the shaft was rendered more difficult from the slight projections left at the top and bottom as transitional members to the base and to the capital. This horizontal fillet was a further gain to the outline of the column, concave and convex surfaces thus alternating from floor to ceiling. The flutings were terminated above and below, before reaching this transverse member, by a semicircle, which agreed with their sectional outline.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 161.--Ionic Order from the Peripteros of the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 162.--Plan of the Normal Ionic Capital.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 163.--Plan of the Corner Ionic Capital.]

The capital consisted, in part, of an echinos, similar to that of the Doric style, the leaves, which, at least in one instance, had been painted upon it, being here carved, and an astragal taking the place of the necking rings. This echinos is almost entirely covered by a spiral roll, which gives to the style its most striking characteristic. With the discovery of the helix upon the capitals of a.s.syrian reliefs, all the labored explanations of the significance and derivation of this member have fallen to the ground. It is impossible to believe, with Vitruvius, that the Ionic column was considered as the representative of the fair s.e.x: that the locks of hair were indicated by the spiral line of the capital, the folds of the wide garments and draperies by the flutes and fillets, and the sandals by the base. Nor are the theories more satisfactory which seek for such natural motives as spiral sh.e.l.ls or twisted ram's horns, a.s.sumed to have been primitive ornaments of the sanctuaries. And it is still worse to regard the peculiar form of the capital as decided by the conception of an elastic cushion, which, displaced by the weight of the entablature, curls again at either side of the echinos. The Ionic helix was a form of capital imported from the East, where it had been used by barbaric designers as a mere ornament upon upright legs of furniture (_Fig._ 81), or upon Persian columns (_Fig._ 80)--a form developed by the Greeks into an architectural member of the first importance. The a.s.syrians, by doubling the volutes, had formed with this motive a capital not particularly well adapted to the functions of a transitional member between vertical support and horizontal burden. The h.e.l.lenic architect perceived that a more decided projection was necessary, and therefore placed an echinos beneath the volute, leaving the roll as the medium between the circular shaft and oblong entablature, which, in the Doric style, had been formed by the abacus. The horizontal lines of the abacus, thus supplanted, were represented upon the Ionic column only by a narrow moulding, curved to the profile of a cyma and sculptured with a leaved ornament. In the Greek capital the spirals became an elegantly curved roll, of greater length than breadth, with tightly curled ends, which were bound together, upon either side of the echinos, by a band. The capital thus shows its true profile, the helices upon front and back, and upon the subordinate sides rolls of their thickness. (_Fig._ 161.) This difference between face and side resulted in one great difficulty upon the corners, which, like the irregularity of the division of the Doric frieze of triglyphs and metopes in the same place, proves that the Ionic style also did not originate upon the peripteral plan, but was adapted to it from a temple in antis. It was natural that the more ornamental side of the column should face the entrance front, and thus the capitals upon the longer sides of the building were forced to show their rolls, the _partie honteuse_, unless the corner capital a.s.sumed an unnatural deformation to present the helices upon two adjoining, instead of two opposite, faces. (_Figs._ 162 and 163.) The corner capital thus became a miserable hybrid, which, because of the impossibility of its execution in a natural manner, from the intersection of the outer volutes when these proceeded in a straight line parallel to the epistyle, lost not only all constructive significance and harmony with those next to it, but also its individual beauty. There was no other expedient than to bend the faces of the corner volutes outward in the line of the diagonal--a malformation visible at every standpoint. A further difficulty was presented by the corners of the spirals over the echinos, which required to be masked by floral decorations. Upon the narrow abacus moulding rested the entablature, remarkable for the Oriental character of the details, and notably for reminiscences of primitive wooden construction, which are almost as evident in the Ionic as in the Doric style. The epistyle, formed in the latter by a single plane block, was here triply stepped to agree with the multiplied beams required by the nature of Oriental timber--generally provided by the various species of palms. According to the description of Vitruvius, the motive was also employed for the wooden epistyle beams of Etruscan temples. Each face projected slightly beyond the one beneath it, as previously customary in Asia, and shown by the ruins of the palace of Darius (_Fig._ 84) and the rock-cut facade of that monarch's tomb (_Fig._ 83). The epistyle is terminated by a Lesbian cyma and an astragal, the latter being, in some instances, repeated upon every light step from beam to beam beneath. The frieze, known in this style as the zophoros, the bearer of figures, is an original h.e.l.lenic creation, the Oriental entablature consisting of only two members as representative of only two constructive features: the epistyle that connected the columns, and the ceiling and roof, which, in the rainless countries of the East, appear as one and the same member. In Greece the inclined roof was separated fundamentally from the horizontal ceiling, and the entablature consequently expressed a triple character. The nave and truthful manner of this expression, peculiar to the Doric style, was not followed by the Ionic. The second member of the entablature, the frieze, should represent the ceiling, but the symbols of that constructive feature, the dentils, were crowded up among the details of the cornice, while the zophoros itself, perhaps as a result of the relief sculpture employed upon the Doric metopes, became a continuous decoration of carving. The dentils, as significant of the ends of the small ceiling-beams, were in their proper place, touching the epistyle, upon the monuments of Persia (_Fig._ 83), and also upon the tombs of Lycia (_Figs._ 110 and 111), so closely allied to the Mesopotamian tradition; they were there of far greater size than in the Greek Ionic, where their position and diminutive dimensions reduced them to a mere ornament. The members of the cornice stand in no such relation to the interior construction of beams and rafters as did the mutules and trunnels of the Doric temples. The curved gutter, however, is ornamented with lion's-heads and anthemions, which seem in both styles to have been derived from western Asia. The stone beams of the pteroma ceiling rest directly upon the epistyle, and are consequently as far below their exterior representatives, the cornice dentils, as, in the Doric, they were above the triglyphs. Between them are the rich cofferings, not with small lacunae, calculated to produce an effect mainly by color, but in broad surfaces, frequently stepped, with carved cyma-mouldings in the angles. (_Fig._ 164.) The plan of the cella differed but slightly from that of Doric temples. The doors are usually provided with parotides, the doubly-spiral brackets which have remained a popular ornament beneath the coronations of door and window openings until the present day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 164.--Ceiling from the Peripteros of the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos. Restoration.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 165.--Base and Capital from Ba.s.sae.]

The historical development of the Ionic temple is not ill.u.s.trated by as many examples as was that of the Doric style, and, indeed, there was no such marked and regular advance as that observable in the temples of Selinous, Olympia, and Athens. A great number of Ionic monuments stand in a district not as yet thoroughly examined: the southern coasts of Asia Minor. Towards the border of Lycia traces of an archaic or proto-Ionic style have been observed, more closely allied to Eastern motives than were the developed temples of Greece. The capitals of Lycian tombs (_Fig._ 110) have no echinos, by the addition of which so great an advance was subsequently made; the formation of the rolls upon the sides was also primitive, they being at times perfectly straight, at times disproportionately curved. The difficult transition from the end of the shaft to the volutes was evaded, and masked by anthemions or other ornaments. The only example of such an imperfect formation in European Greece existed in the interior of the Temple of Apollo at Ba.s.sae (_Fig._ 159); the date of its erection, however, shows this example not to have been archaic, but rather archaistic,--that is to say, intentionally and affectedly imitated from primitive peculiarities of form. (_Fig._ 165.) The columns, engaged to transverse walls, have bases of excessive projection, the thin and feeble tore being out of proportion to the high member beneath it. The lower end of the shaft itself forms a second projection, which greatly exceeds the usual _conge_ and fillet of the bottom drum. The shallow flutings are continued up to the very top of the shaft, there being concluded by an almost straight line. The capital itself is most strikingly archaistic, presenting the helices upon each of its three exposed faces; it is an applied decoration which has given up all semblance of constructive unity or function, leaving the prismatic kernel, without an abacus moulding, to project above the curves and support the imposed entablature. The narrow s.p.a.ce remaining between the two large spirals of each side is almost entirely filled by a decoration of anthemions, and the introduction of an echinos is thus rendered unnecessary. The sculptured zophoros of the interior entablature, now one of the chief treasures of the British Museum, betrays in its figures the greatest freedom from convention, in marked contrast to the affectedly antique character of the architectural forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 166.--From the Heraion upon Samos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 167.--From the Temple of Apollo Didymaeos, Miletos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 168.--From the Temple of Athene at Priene.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 169.--From the Propylaea of Cnidos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 170.--From the Temple of Wingless Victory, Athens.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 171.--Temple Ruin at Aphrodisias.]

The northern coast of Asia Minor, as far as it is at present known, offers few Ionic remains of the archaic period. The original Temple of Artemis, at Ephesos, according to Pliny the most ancient peripteros of the style, has been totally obliterated by frequent reconstructions and the famed conflagration of Herostratos. A second fane of national importance, the Temple of Hera, at Samos, is at present known only by one unfluted column, 1.6 m. in lower diameter, and by horizontally fluted tores and plinths. These two buildings were of such interest that their architects saw fit to celebrate their constructive peculiarities in monographs, as had been done for the Doric Parthenon. The writings of Chersiphron and of the Cretan Metagenes upon the Artemision at Ephesos, and of Theodoros, the son of the Samian Illecles, upon the Heraion of that island, are mentioned as late as the time of the Roman emperors.

These peripteral temples, built about the middle of the sixth century B.C., were of very considerable dimensions, but were far surpa.s.sed in size by a third national shrine of the Ionians, the Temple of Apollo Didymaeos, rebuilt by Paionios of Ephesos and Daphnis of Miletos almost a century later than the former monuments, 470 B.C., upon the site of an ancient structure destroyed by the Persians. The temple was a dipteros decastylos, that is, had a double row of outstanding columns around the cella, with ten upon the front; it measured 91 m. in length and 49 m. in breadth. The columns were proportionately tall, 19 m. in height, which equals nine and a half lower diameters, and were placed closely together, the intercolumniations being only one and a half diameters wide. The scotia of the base was divided by a projecting moulding and elevated upon a square plinth; the tore had no horizontal flutings.

(_Fig._ 167.) The capital had a straight connection between the spirals, and the epistyle was stepped but twice. The interior of the temple was provided with pilasters, the capitals of which are of an Oriental character, richly decorated with floral motives. A Corinthian capital also occurs upon the building (_Fig._ 177), which will be referred to below. The enormous temple of which there are fragmentary remains at Sardis, supposed to be that of Cybele, appears to have been erected during this period, and resembles the shrine of Apollo Didymaeos at Miletos. The Temple of Athene Polias at Priene, the work of the architect Pythios, who celebrated its completion in a monograph, dates from the middle of the fourth century B.C., as it was dedicated by Alexander the Great. It was a hexastyle peripteros, of normal dimensions, 35 m. long and 19 m. broad. The plans of Ionic temples differed in proportion from those of the Doric style, their length being less than twice their width. The base of the temple at Priene (_Fig._ 168) is peculiar, in that the horizontal flutings of the tore, entirely lacking in the Didymaion, were restricted to its lower half; this can hardly be taken to prove that the building was never completed, but is rather explained by the consideration that no escape was possible for the rain-water which dripped into the upper grooves. The connection between the spirals of the capital face is curved downward; the ornaments of the entablature are more florid, and the gutter is almost overladen with floral motives. The tetrastyle Ionic Propylaea of the same place appear to be of more recent date; the capitals of the inner pilasters are decorated similarly to those within the Didymaion. Another structure of this kind at Cnidos is of more beautiful detail, the base (_Fig._ 169) being particularly graceful in outline and proportions; the increased curve of its tore obviated the trouble of water standing in the horizontal flutings. There are but few remains of the temples of Artemis Leucophryne at Magnesia, and of Dionysos at Teos, built towards the end of the fourth century B.C., and celebrated in monographs by the architect Hermogenes. The first of these was, according to Strabo, the third largest fane of Asia Minor, measuring 64 m. in length and 29 m. in breadth. The influence of Attic architecture is evident in the bases and in the rich decoration of the capital rolls. The building is thought to be the first example of a pseudodipteros, that is, of a peripteros having a pteroma equal to the breadth of that upon a temple with two ranges of outstanding columns, a dipteros. Resembling this, though smaller, was the hexastyle peripteros of Teos, at first intended to have been of the Doric style, the plan being altered to Ionic after all the material had been provided. Traces of decline in the art prove the octastyle peripteros of Apollo at Claros, near Colophon, and the temple at Pessinus, in Galatia, to have been more recent. The Temple of Panh.e.l.lenic Zeus and the Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias (_Fig._ 171) are referred to the beginning of the Christian era. The excessive attenuation of the columns of the latter, which have a height equal to ten lower diameters, the extension of the floral ornaments even to the channels of the shaft and the connection of the capital spirals, the so-called egg-and-dart moulding in the cyma, the diminutive dentils and the introduction of consoles above them, all betray the tasteless magnificence of the Roman imperial period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 172.--Temple upon the Ilissos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 173.--Plan of the Erechtheion. (Boetticher.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 174.--Northwestern View of the Erechtheion.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 175.--From the Eastern p.r.o.naos of the Erechtheion.]

The Ionic style in Attica developed in a peculiar manner, being there superior, both as regards breadth of form and beauty of detail, to the works of Asia Minor. The Doric had been perfected in Athens, and the most n.o.ble Ionic monument, the Erechtheion, stood beside the Parthenon; the Athenian acropolis presented the n.o.blest examples in both methods of building, standing unrivalled at the head of the h.e.l.lenic world in architectural, as in political and intellectual respects. Characteristic of the Attic Ionic are the so-called Attic base and the entablature without dentils. The former consists of a second tore beneath the concave plinth of the usual base; by this addition its symmetry was increased, and a rhythmical profile of great beauty was gained: two convex and two concave members of harmonious proportion alternating from the upper slip to the commencement of the fluting. The Attic architect evidently did not accept the significance of the dentils as representatives of the ceiling-joists, and preferred to cut a decided drip upon the lower surface of the corona, which had so marked a slant in the more familiar Doric cornice. In the place of the dentils, a transition was provided by a cyma and astragal, which mouldings received in Athens their typical perfection. The few Ionic ruins of European Greece do not ill.u.s.trate the historical development of the Attic Ionic style. The interior columns of the Temple of Apollo at Ba.s.sae (_Figs._ 159 and 165) cannot be considered in this connection; their archaistic details by no means express the influence of Athens, notwithstanding that the work is attributed to the architect Ictinos. The peculiarities of Attic Ionic architecture are well exemplified by the small amphiprostyle temple upon the Ilissos, near Athens, which, though now entirely destroyed, was in existence up to the end of the last century, and was measured and drawn by Stuart and Revett. (_Fig._ 172.) The lower tore of the base is here small and weak, as if a hesitating attempt to improve the usual outline. The shaft was short, perhaps from the influence of the Doric examples; the epistyle, from the same consideration, was without the characteristic steps. Similar to this is another tetrastyle amphiprostylos, the Temple of Wingless Victory before the Propylaea of the acropolis, which, as if to compensate for the loss of the temple upon the Ilissos, was rebuilt in 1835, with overthrown fragments rescued from a Turkish bastion, and has become one of the chief ornaments of the ascent. (_Fig._ 158.) The entire crepidoma is so small--8 m. long and 5.5 broad--that the cella, after the deduction of the front and rear porticos, is even broader than it is deep. The architectural details are of exceeding delicacy and perfection (_Fig._ 170); the sculptures of the zophoros and of the bal.u.s.trade will be considered in the following section. The inner columns of the Athenian Propylaea show the lower tore fully developed, and the base-mouldings isolated by a plinth of slightly concave profile, elsewhere adopted only at Eleusis, in imitation of this building. The highest perfection of the Ionic style was, as before said, attained in the second national sanctuary of the Athenians--the world-renowned Temple of Athene Polias upon the acropolis, the Erechtheion. The construction of the edifice seems to have been undertaken immediately after the burning of the ancient building by the Persians, in 480 B.C., but, in consequence of the miseries of the Peloponnesian war, its completion was delayed until eighty years after that date. It was a combination of several shrines which, necessarily constructed upon different levels, rendered a perfect symmetry of plan impossible. Other double temples, like those of Leto and Asclepios, and of Aphrodite and Ares at Mantinea, or of Apollo Carneios and of Hypnos at Sikyon, were not, upon the exterior, distinguishable from the common type, as, with an equal division of the cella, entrances could be allowed upon either front. In the Erechtheion this simple arrangement was not practicable, because of the complicated nature of the combined sanctuaries and the irregularity of the ground; yet this did not prove a disadvantage: to the architectural perfection of the monument was thus added a charm of picturesque composition usually foreign to the temple buildings of Greek antiquity. The plan given (_Fig._ 173) is according to Boetticher's restoration, but the mooted question of the interior division of the building is still far from being decided. Upon the princ.i.p.al eastern front was a hexastyle portico, _a_, through which entrance was given to the naos of Athene Polias, _b_, occupying nearly one half of the cella. Access to the other division was obtained through the tetrastyle hall, _c_, upon the northwestern corner, opening directly into the narrow sanctuary of Pandrosos, _d_, from which four portals led to as many chambers: the first, _g_, to the Chapel of Boutes; the second, _h_, by means of a short staircase, to the Crypt of Poseidon, _e_; from the third, _i_, was a descent to a corridor leading to a s.p.a.ce under the Naos of Athene Polias; while the last, opposite the hall, led to the Porch of the Caryatides, _f_. This complicated disposition was, as has been said, dependent upon the peculiar natural position of the ancient national shrines: the tomb of Cecrops and the memorials of the contest between Poseidon and Athene for the possession of Athens,--the impression of the trident with which Poseidon smote the cliff, leaving a spring of salt water, and the olive-tree which, at the command of Athene, sprang from the same rock. Of the interior of the building there are almost no vestiges; but the form of the exterior is, in the main, clear. (_Fig._ 174.) The capitals upon the columns of the eastern portico (_Fig._ 175), and upon the pilasters of the western wall, which was pierced by windows, are of almost excessive magnificence. The outlines of the spirals are doubled, the side-rolls are grooved, and ornamented with astragals; there is a band carved with a woven ornament above the egg-and-dart moulding of the echinos, and an entirely new feature has been added to the capital--a broad and rich necking of carved anthemions. The effect of this band was particularly favorable because the decoration upon it could be repeated beneath the capitals of the pilasters, and a greater harmony of the corresponding members thus secured. The columns of the northwestern porch are larger and even richer in detail, especially the bases, the upper tore being ornamented with a woven motive in place of the customary horizontal grooving. The entablature, from which the dentils are missing, is of the utmost elegance of proportion, the carving of its cyma-mouldings being the most delicate work of architectural carving known. The reliefs upon the zophoros were not cut from its substance, but were merely attached to its plane surface; few fragments have, consequently, been preserved. One of the most beautiful features of the building is the Porch of the Caryatides in the southwestern corner (F). In place of columns, the figures of virgins support the horizontal marble ceiling, which is of no great weight. The model for these was doubtless taken from the basket-bearing maidens of the Panathenaic procession, the Canephorae. The origin of the term _caryatides_ is not known. Both geographical and historical proofs are wanting to make probable the account given by Vitruvius,--that the motive for these figures was derived from the women of the Peloponnesian town Carya, who were condemned to slavery for treachery during the Persian war. From the baskets of the Canephorae has been developed a capital member, like an echinos, decorated with the egg-and-dart moulding and an astragal, and provided with an abacus. The frieze is lacking from the entablature, in recognition of the fact that roof and ceiling are here one and the same member. The dentils appear in the cornice, it being possible for them to take their true position upon the epistyle. The faultless beauty of the decorative carving is particularly evident upon the casings of the portals.

Monuments of the Ionic style, not numerous in Attica, are rare in the Peloponnesos, and exceptional farther west, where the Doric element of the population predominated. When Ionic ruins are found in the latter districts, they generally betray the influence of the Attic school, which is perceptible even in the Ionic order of Rome. It is not strange that, after the acquaintance of the Romans with h.e.l.lenic lands, this method of building should, in their universal eclecticism, have been frequently adopted. It will be seen in the following section how Italy, the heir of the decaying civilization of the East, reduced the forms of Ionic architecture to a facile and commonplace scheme.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 176.--From Ba.s.sae.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 177.--From the Temple of Apollo, near Miletos.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 178.--From the Tower of the Winds, Athens.]

During the age of Pericles a foreign growth, the Corinthian capital, had been engrafted upon the Ionic style, which changed the character of the whole, the more decidedly because introduced upon the most prominent feature. This "Corinthian" innovation affected the capital alone, and cannot be considered as an order, still less as a style, when compared to the Doric and Ionic. It was a mere variety of the latter, which, in all other respects than the capital, remained unaltered. The new form is mentioned as an innovation of Callimachos, a sculptor celebrated for the magnificent golden lamp and funnel made by him for the Erechtheion. The name of that artificer may have given authority to the first introduction of the Corinthian capital into Greek lands; but the detailed account of Vitruvius in regard to its origin can hardly be deemed more than a fable. He relates that a loving nurse had placed a basket of toys, covered with a tile, upon the grave of a Corinthian girl, and that in the spring-time an acanthos-plant, upon which it stood, sent forth shoots covering the basket and curling beneath the tile, thus providing a model directly imitated by Callimachos. The calyx capitals of Egypt had long been known to the Greeks. In transferring this floral motive across the Mediterranean, the decorative foliage of papyrus and lotus had been given up, those unknown plants not being adapted to h.e.l.lenic conventionalization. National art ever seeks the subjects for floral ornament from the growths of its native soil. It was on this account that oak-leaves, thistles, grape-leaves, and ivy were employed in Gothic architecture; and, in a similar manner, the Greek could make no more fortunate choice than the h.e.l.lenic thistle, the acanthos, the forms of which even surpa.s.s in beauty the serrated outline of the grape-leaf. The Corinthian capital suited well the prevalent tendency to attenuate the shaft, and, at the same time, it furthered an harmonious agreement between the capitals of columns and of pilasters.

Its forms presented a better solution of the problem of the capital, and were more perfect in an abstract, if not in an artistic, point of view than any of the preceding varieties. The two functions of the transitional member--the projection, the oblique line between the vertical and the horizontal, and the change from a circular to a rectangular plan--had, in the Doric and Ionic capitals, been effected by two separate bodies; in the Corinthian they were accomplished by one alone. The kernel gave the projection, considerably steeper, according to its height, than the Doric or Ionic echinos. The oblique line, convex in the former style, is here slightly concave, although still sufficiently vigorous in character to bear the light entablature. The surrounding floral decoration effects the transition from the circle to the rectangle; the upper leaves project towards the corners of the thin abacus, under which they curl, giving to the capital, at some little distance below its plinth, a section nearly square. A canonical form of the Corinthian capital did not exist in progressive h.e.l.lenic art. This does not appear until the order was reduced to a system by the thought-saving and practical Romans. The completed type, so familiar in the monuments of Italy, and used for centuries since in all parts of the world, does not occur in Greece, the creation of the Corinthian order, as such, being emphatically a work of the Romans. The Corinthian capital was, in h.e.l.lenic architecture, merely a fanciful and ever-varied decoration of foliage around a concave calyx. The before-mentioned example from the Temple of Apollo in Ba.s.sae shows how imperfect the arrangement was at first. (_Fig._ 176.) The single row of leaves at its base does not sufficiently ornament the kernel; the spirals upon the four corners and the anthemions between them leave too much of its surface uncovered. The thin abacus is neither provided with a profile moulding, nor at all carved; upon its edge is painted a Doric meander; its sides are curved in plan, advancing above the corner spirals so that these might project farther from the calyx. A decided advance is shown by the capital of an engaged column employed within the Temple of Apollo Didymaios at Miletos (_Fig._ 177), which appears to be of more recent date. A double wreath of acanthos-leaves surrounds the calyx, those upon the corners being made sufficiently tall to support the spirals; between them are anthemions. Fragments brought from the ruins of Knidos to the British Museum are of similar form. These remains all resemble, in a more or less marked degree, the ultimate typical development of the Corinthian capital. Others, and among them some of a later period, lack important const.i.tuent parts. A second variety, discovered in the Didymaion, had only one wreath of leaves, and no connection with the square abacus by corner spirals. The capitals of the so-called Tower of the Winds in Athens (_Fig._ 178) resemble them. Behind the acanthos-leaves rises a simple row of lanceolate reeds, which follows the outline of the calyx. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, built more than a century previous, in 334 B.C., presents a beautiful instance of a fanciful Corinthian capital. Between the shaft and the calyx there is a preparatory necking of small leaves, similar to those which existed upon the example within the temple at Ba.s.sae. Above the low acanthos wreath rises a rich garland of foliage and flowers, with a central anthemion rising to the top of the abacus. The heavy corner volutes cannot compensate for the excessive contraction of the calyx, which takes away from the unity and force of the main transitional curve.

The Corinthian capital appears to have attained the form under which it is now known in the middle of the second century B.C. The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens received its peripteros of Corinthian columns under Antiochos Epiphanes, 176-164 B.C.; though its crepidoma, probably intended for an edifice of the Doric style, had been prepared as early as the time of Peisistratos. The architectural direction of the building had been intrusted to a Roman, Cossutius, and it was, in fact, destined to provide material for Rome itself, as, soon after its completion, the columns were carried away by Sulla and employed in the restoration of the temple upon the Roman Capitol, shortly before destroyed by fire. The capitals thus removed appear to have been regarded as models, and to have exercised a great influence upon the development of the Corinthian order, as cultivated, almost exclusively, by the Romans. The calyx decorated with acanthos foliage corresponded to the taste of the imperial epoch for architectural magnificence, and its employment was not embarra.s.sed by the difficulties upon the corners of peripteral temples which have been discussed in the consideration of the Doric frieze and the Ionic capital. The floral decoration soon extended to the entablature, increasing the number and dimensions of its minor members.

The most striking result was the transformation of the dentils into the richly carved consoles of doubly spiral profile, which were imitated from the parotides of the Ionic portal coronation, but were placed horizontally instead of vertically. The use of both dentils and consoles is a barbaric duplication, characteristic of the tasteless architectural magnificence of the Roman decline. The so-called Corinthian base is no real characteristic of the order, being only a combination of Ionic and Attic forms, with a double scotia between the two tores.

h.e.l.lenic architecture has thus far been considered exclusively in its relations to sacred edifices, because the art of building, among nations whose civilization has been influenced by religious conceptions, is always best exemplified by temples. But it was natural that Doric and Ionic forms should be employed, though in a less conventional manner, for all the buildings of Greece, being richly elaborated in monumental works, and more or less simplified and adapted in structures intended for private or public usefulness, as economy and civic destination alike forced restrictions upon the disposition and decoration of the design.

The sacred nature of monumental tombs allied them most nearly to the temples. The conical tumulus had preceded the h.e.l.lenic peripteros, and when that helpless form was entirely given up, after the perfection of the columnar temple, the cinerary urn remained as a leading motive, which excluded the lengthened plan of the peripteral temple and rather tended to increase the height of the monument--otherwise a subordinate dimension. Graves of less importance were marked by columns, upright blocks of stone with an ornamental cap, or by steles, the angular termination of which often betrayed the influence of the temple gable, while the shaft retained the nature of the pier. More prominent sepulchres consisted of ranges of columns upon a cube, which, containing a sarcophagus, took the place of the cylinder beneath the conical tumulus. As the columns had, in general, only a decorative importance, it was not necessary to construct a cella in connection with them. This was only added when a chapel was required for funeral worship, or when, as in mausoleums of great dimensions, inner walls were needed to provide a bearing for the ceiling beams. The termination of these structures was characteristic. The sacred gable was generally avoided, in just appreciation of its significance, and the form of the tumulus was retained, so far as the rectangular plan would permit, a pyramidal superstructure taking the place of the cone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 179.--Tomb at Myla.s.sa.]

That this pyramid was constructed in steps is evident from a small tomb without a cella at Myla.s.sa (_Fig._ 179), and from that magnificent monument, the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos, one of the wonders of the antique world. (_Fig._ 180.) The latter was erected by Artemisia, the widow and successor of King Mausolos, who called to her a.s.sistance the most celebrated architects of the time, Satyros and Pythios; as well as the greatest sculptors, Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares, and Timotheos. It is known by the extensive English excavations of 1856 and 1857. Although the opinions of prominent authorities differ greatly as to its design, it is yet certain that upon the ma.s.sive oblong foundation, 30 m. long, 24 m. broad, and over 15 m. high, which contained the small sepulchral chamber, there stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns, and terminated by a stepped pyramid, the truncated apex of which bore a colossal marble quadriga, with the statues of the queen and of a female charioteer, the whole attaining a height of 42 m. The works of sculpture--the figures which stood in the intercolumniations and the reliefs upon the wall of the cella, and perhaps also upon the substructure--will be considered in the next section. It is possible that the destination of the edifice was not that usually attributed to it, Urlichs having argued that it was a heroon, and a memorial of victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 180.--Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos.]

The Monument of the Nereides at Xanthos (_Fig._ 181) resembled the Mausoleum in many respects. It was a peristyle of sixteen Ionic columns elevated upon a ma.s.sive foundation. Statues stood in its intercolumniations, while the zophoros and substructure were carved with reliefs. A gabled roof seems, however, to have indicated the sacred character of the edifice. The cella and the surrounding columns of this cla.s.s of buildings were united in various manners, a remarkable example of a pseudo-peripteros being offered by the so-called Tomb of Theron in Acragas in Sicily. In other instances three stories resulted from a duplication of the foundations beneath the peripteros, as in the alleged Tomb of Mikipsas at Constantina, the ancient Cirta in Numidia. This multiplication was particularly frequent in the Roman period. The tomb of this nature at Saint-Remi, in Southern France, the ancient Glanum, built during the reign of Augustus, is one of the most beautiful ruins known.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 181.--Monument of the Nereides at Xanthos.]

Among the choragic monuments of Greece, the most interesting is that erected by Lysicrates in commemoration of the victory gained by a chorus of boys of the Phyle Acamantis led by him. It served as a pedestal for the prize bestowed, a tripod, and was a pseudo-monopteros of small dimensions and beautiful details. Engaged columns with Corinthian capitals supported a monolithic ceiling, the floral termination of which originally served as a base for the tripod. The so-called Tower of the Winds was a clepsydra, built by Andronicos Kyrrhestes, and was also furnished outside with dials and a weatherc.o.c.k. It is especially interesting on account of the peculiar forms of its Corinthian capitals.

(_Fig._ 178.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 182.--Stoa Diple at Thoricos.]

The most extensive employment of columns in civic architecture was in the porticos, the stoas, which surrounded the market-places and extended through many streets, being connected with baths, gymnasions, palaestras, stadia, and hippodromes, and even appearing as independent buildings. The market-place, the agora, was, in ancient cities, commonly of an irregular form; when possible it was surrounded by colonnades. In more recent settlements care was taken to provide a rectangular s.p.a.ce for the purpose, in which double porticos of considerable extent were built for shelter in bad weather. In view of the effeminacy of the Ionians, it is easy to credit the account that this race first provided the chief places in towns with the protection of stoas, introducing this custom in Greece, where it soon became general. Extended colonnades were frequently connected with them, traversing the princ.i.p.al streets. The independent stoas, which were arranged in the greatest variety of combinations, are of particular interest. The Stoa Poikile (the many-colored), upon the market-place of Athens, was built by Peisianax, the brother-in-law of Cimon, this latter causing the walls to be decorated by Polygnotos and his a.s.sistants--upon one wing with scenes from the battle of Marathon, upon the other from that of Oinoe, while the long background of the princ.i.p.al hall was similarly treated. Upon the market-places the porticos were often increased in width by a second row of columns, and in later times a dividing-wall was frequently placed between these ranges as a spina. According to Pausanias, this was the case with the so-called Kerkyraion Hall of Elis. The form of a _stoa diple_, or double colonnade, was more customary; in it the central wall was replaced by a third range of columns, as the case appears to have been at Thoricos (_Fig._ 182), where the entrance was provided in the middle of the longer sides by wider intercolumniations. The enlargement was carried still farther by making the colonnade of three aisles, with two inner ranges of columns, as in the Stoa of the h.e.l.lanodikae: covered s.p.a.ces of great breadth, open upon all sides, and admirably adapted to their purpose, were thus provided. It is natural to a.s.sume that the great grain market of the Piraios was such an extended stoa, as was likewise the so-called Basilica of Paestum, a structure of three aisles, lacking exterior enclosure. The latter building is a.s.suredly misnamed, the nature of a basilica being dependent upon outer walls. The prototype of the Roman and Christian basilicas is rather to be sought in the law courts of the Archon Basileus in Athens, a combination of enclosed halls and chambers, which, by their future development, received an historical and practical importance exceeding that of any other work of h.e.l.lenic architecture, not excepting the temples, which became useless with the extinction of h.e.l.lenic religious conceptions. The columns of stoas were multiplied above, as well as beside, one another, a.n.a.logous to the galleries over the side aisles of the larger temples. This appears to have been the case upon the so-called Persian Hall at Sparta, where, instead of upper shafts, there were piers decorated with the statues of Persians, comparable to the corresponding architectural members of the Incantada at Thessalonica, though the figures of G.o.ds and heroes were, in the latter instance, attached to the supports in three-quarter relief, while the statues at Sparta appear to have been in the full round. It is evident from the Roman basilicas, to be considered in another section, that the employment of galleries was general in the enclosed stoas of Greece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 183.--Stadion at Messene.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 184.--Hippodrome at Olympia.]

Chief among the public buildings of h.e.l.las, after the agoras and stoas, were the arrangements for the festive games. These were divided into two cla.s.ses: bodily exercises and scenic representations. The former were the more important, forming a prominent part in the education of every Greek citizen. Palaistras and gymnasia were provided for the manuvres, stadia and hippodromes for the public contests and races.

In primitive times the palaistras had no architectural character; a meadow and a sandy reach, generally upon the bank of a brook and shaded by trees, sufficed as a training-ground. The private palaistras seem never to have exceeded this simplicity; but the great importance of drill for the military power of the State early demanded the erection of suitable structures, and there resulted the gymnasion, a combination of covered chambers and halls with open courts, which provided separate and fitting s.p.a.ces for the different gymnastic exercises and for the baths, as well as for the higher intellectual entertainments of the philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets. These structures were probably varied in character until the most suitable arrangement was decided by experience. It seems early to have become customary to surround a rectangular s.p.a.ce by colonnades, to which were added extensive wings, semicircular exedras, and the like, for scientific and aesthetic instruction. Upon one side were grouped a number of chambers known as the Ephebeion, Apodyterion, Elaiothesion, Conisterion, Corykeion, Laconicon, Lutron, etc., serving the youths as places of a.s.semblage, rooms for dressing and anointing, hot and cold baths, etc. Opposite to them extended the stadion, while, within the enclosure, promenades between groups of trees and beds of flowers alternated with grounds for shorter races, quoit-throwing, wrestling, and other contests. Some examples, like those of Ephesos, Hierapolis, and Alexandria, still display in their ruins the chief features of this arrangement, though more or less influenced by the customs of imperial Rome, where the baths had been in great measure separated from the gymnasia. The spirit of emulation was excited by the publicity of these inst.i.tutions, and increased by the periodical festive compet.i.tions to a height far exceeding our modern conceptions. A wreath of laurel or olive leaves, a small quant.i.ty of oil, a tripod, or other similar rewards of victory, such as were given as prizes in the games of Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Corinth, and Athens, conferred almost divine honor, even the years being known by the name of the temporary hero of Olympia. The five chief divisions of the gymnastic exercises, the pentathlon--running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, and the throwing of the discos--were practised in the stadion, a s.p.a.ce from 180 m. to 300 m. long, usually chosen close to the side of a hill, which, more or less prepared by terracing and grading, provided seats for spectators. If a narrow valley were near at hand, as in the case of the Athenian stadion of the suburb Agrae, the opposite slopes were thus occupied. The seats near the goal were naturally the more desirable, and it was here that the architectural features were concentrated, terraces being carried in a semicircle around this centre.

Examples are not wanting, as in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, where both ends were thus terminated, and the s.p.a.ce for spectators carried around the entire race-course, thus pointing the way to a building of this form, the amphitheatre, which was to become the delight of the Roman world. The stadion of Messene (_Fig._ 183) shows how natural inclinations were followed and utilized, though at the expense of a symmetrical disposition; yet this example dates from the later extravagant period of Greek history, and is far removed from the patriarchal simplicity of primitive times. The stadion did not suffice for the races of horses and chariots which had been favorites with the Greeks since the Trojan war. In such early ages, any goal chosen in the plain was sufficient, like the oak-trunk mentioned by Homer; but it could not have been long before the need was manifest of a sloping stand for the spectators and an enclosure for the contestants, and thus the hippodrome, the race-course, was developed similarly to the smaller stadion. The most celebrated, and perhaps the oldest, hippodrome of Greece, that of Olympia, is described by Pausanias. The right side, the longer, consisted of an artificial embankment of earth, while the slope of a hill was employed for the left; at the entrance was a colonnade devoted to the preparations of the charioteers. The starting-point, the aphesis, had, according to the expression of Pausanias, a form like the prow of a vessel--that is, advanced in a pointed form--to facilitate the start. The plan here given, _Fig._ 184, is altered from Visconti's restoration by these gates being opened towards the first turning-point, the _taraxippos_, or terror of the horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 185.--Scheme of the Greek Theatre, according to Vitruvius.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 186.--Restored View of the Theatre of Segesta.]

The theatres, as enclosures for musical and scenic representations, offered greater scope for architectural development. When possible, the auditorium was in a situation where a natural semicircular inclination served instead of the immense foundations which would otherwise have been necessary for the elevated seats; the stage and surrounding buildings were, however, free-standing works of architecture. The arrangement of the Greek theatre is described by Vitruvius: three squares were inscribed in a circle, thus forming a twelve-pointed star (_Fig._ 185); one of the sides, _a b_, served as the line of the front foundation of the stage. This platform, the logeion, was closed at the rear by a wall, treated like a facade, and forming a background, the skene; its position being decided by the tangent _c d_, parallel to the front side. The remainder of the circle, the orchestra, was reserved for the evolutions of the chorus and for the stand of the musicians, the thymele; it was not until the development of the Roman theatre that spectators were admitted to this enclosure. Its extent was slightly increased by drawing the outline from the diameter, _e f_, to the stage with a doubled radius. Around seven twelfths of the original circle was constructed the concentrical auditorium of ascending seats, divided by a platform at half-height, the diazoma, into two parts, and accessible by radial pa.s.sages. The statement of Vitruvius, who, as usual, subst.i.tutes a thought-saving canon for the living individuality of h.e.l.lenic art, is not borne out by the numerous remains of Greek theatres. The orchestra and auditorium exceed the semicircle in every instance where local conformations have not rendered this impossible; but they either do this by elongating the arc with tangents, as in the theatres of Segesta (_Fig._ 186), Syracuse, Tyndaris, and Tauromenion, or by continuing the circ.u.mference of the original circle without deviation, as in those of Athens, Epidauros, Megalopolis, Delos, Melos, Cnidos, Laodikeia, Side, Myra, Telmissos, Patara, Aizanis, etc. Among all known Greek theatres only two, those at Mantinea and Alabanda, are situated in the plain and entirely built of masonry; the others, contrary to Roman custom, utilize natural inclinations, as before explained. The seats were either cut in the native rock, or were walled and reveted with slabs of marble; when the slope was of earth, important foundations were undertaken.