Problems in Periclean Buildings Part 1

Problems in Periclean Buildings.

by G. W. Elderkin.

I

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IRREGULARITY OF THE PROPYLAEA

The irregular position of the door and the windows of the north-west wing of the Propylaea has long been remarked, though no explanations of the phenomenon have been offered. Bohn, _Die Propylaeen der Akropolis zu Athen_, p. 23, says of the south wall of this wing: "Die Wand welche die Halle von dem eigentlichen Gemach trennt, ist von einer Tur und zwei Fenstern durchbrochen. Erstere liegt jedoch nicht in der Mitte, die letzteren wiederum unsymmetrisch zu ihr. Irgend einen Grund, irgend eine axiale Beziehung zu den Saulen vermochte ich in dieser abweichenden Anordnung nicht zu finden." The east wall of the Erechtheum, on the other hand (_A. J. A._, 1906, Pl. 8), was pierced by a central door and two windows equidistant from it. That such symmetrical arrangement should obtain in the Erechtheum and not in the closely contemporary Propylaea very justly occasions surprise. It is the purpose of this study to attempt to explain the irregularity in the latter.

The first fact to be observed with regard to the facade of the Pinakotheke is concisely stated by Bohn (_op. cit._, p. 23): "Die Stellung der Saulen bestimmt sich dadurch da.s.s die Tangente an die Westseite der ostlichsten genau in die entsprechende Flucht der Hexastylstutzen fallt." The position of the anta at the eastern end of the lesser colonnade is also fixed by the requirement that it stand directly beneath a triglyph. This anta in turn determined the position of the eastern window, for the west face of the anta and the window are equidistant from the east wall of the Pinakotheke (Fig. 1). The coincidence can hardly be accidental. If the position of the eastern window was thus determined by considerations of appearance from a well-defined exterior point of view, it is probable that the position of the other two openings in the wall was similarly determined by a point or points somewhere in the line of approach to the building rather than by any consideration for objects within the Pinakotheke. Such a point is readily found at the base of the Nike bastion, from which both windows and door are simultaneously visible between the columns (Fig.

2). The western window appears at the extreme left of the intercolumniation; the eastern, at the extreme right. If the observer advance from this point toward the Pinakotheke, the windows remain constantly in sight but appear to move more and more toward the middle of the intercolumniations (Fig. 3).

Along no other line outside the portico can the three openings be viewed thus simultaneously. Along the line noted, they may be viewed not only simultaneously but in such mutual relation as to give a necessarily varying yet satisfying appearance of symmetry. The facts point to two almost unavoidable inferences: first, that the line of these points determines for us the position of the last stretch of the zigzag road which led up to the Acropolis; second, that the asymmetrical placing of door and windows was due to the architect's desire that the facade should produce a complete and unified impression upon the approaching observer. This wish of the architect, further, explains the unusual depth of the portico of the Pinakotheke. As has already been stated, the position of the east window was fixed by the anta before it. Such being the case, the depth of the portico was necessarily conditioned by the visibility of the window from the bastion of the Nike temple. Had the wall been moved forward, the window would in greater or less degree have been concealed by a column, and the architect's purpose in so far defeated. In view of the unusual depth of the portico the effect of moving the wall still further back scarcely requires consideration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 1

VIEW OF THE EAST WINDOW OF THE PINAKOTHEKE SHOWING ITS RELATION TO THE EAST ANTA OF THE PORTICO]

If the last stretch of the zigzag road has been correctly determined, the next stretch below must have reached from the Nike bastion to a point below the pedestal of the monument to Agrippa. This pedestal, in turn, affords important evidence confirming the theory that such was the course of the road. The monument to Agrippa was erected in 27 B.C., that is, before the Greek way was replaced by the Roman steps in the first century A.D. (Judeich, _Topographie von Athen_, p. 199, note). Its peculiar orientation has never been explained, but now, in view of the preceding a.n.a.lysis, is easily explicable. From the bend in the road at the base of the bastion, the equestrian statue, which surmounted the high pedestal, was seen in exact profile. This is proved by a glance at the plan (Fig. 4) in which the axis of the road and the N-S axis of the pedestal converge at the base of the bastion. From the turn in the road just below the pedestal, the inscription on its west face could be easily read. But from the conjectured road which is drawn in Judeich, _op. cit._, Plan II, it was impossible for a person to read easily the inscription or see the equestrian group in exact profile. Thus it seems beyond question that the pedestal of the monument was oriented with reference to the ancient Greek roadway, the first clue to which is given by the peculiar arrangement of the door and windows of the Pinakotheke.

The road thus determined possesses the signal advantage over the other that it permitted an impressive view through the great portal and an impressive approach to it from directly in front.

The simultaneous visibility of door and windows from the normal line of approach is a hitherto un.o.bserved feature of Periclean building which is again happily ill.u.s.trated in the closely contemporary Erechtheum. The certain restoration by Stevens (_A. J. A._, 1906, Pl. 9) of the east wall of this temple, shows that the door and windows were so placed as to be simultaneously visible from points in the axis of the door (Fig.

7). At a distance of about 10 m. from the stylobate, the windows appeared in the middle of the intercolumniations.[1] The level ground in front of the facade made possible an approach from straight in front. In order that the windows might be simultaneously visible, they were crowded close to the door--a fact which probably compelled the architect to use a bronze-plated door frame instead of a stone one such as he used in the north door. The former permitted longer wall blocks between the door and window than the latter would have allowed.

In the case of the Propylaea, the approach was by a zigzag road up a steep grade. The last stretch of this road was oblique to the N-S axis of the Pinakotheke. If the facade was to be viewed from that last stretch of the zigzag road, an asymmetric arrangement of door and windows was absolutely necessary. The windows and door had to be moved to the right of their normal position. The east facade of the Erechtheum and the Pinakotheke both ill.u.s.trate the same law that door and windows behind a colonnade shall be simultaneously visible from before the colonnade. In the east facade of the Erechtheum, however, this law is observed in a perfectly normal arrangement; in the Pinakotheke, observance of the general law necessitated an abnormal arrangement of the openings.

Yet an insurmountable difficulty in the way of complete observance of the law lay in the necessity for considering the demands of two widely separated points of view, one in the line of approach to the Propylaea, the other within the portico. A glance at the plan of the Propylaea (Fig. 4) shows that lines drawn from the axis of the straight roadway at its lower end to the door jambs of the Pinakotheke cut two columns unequally. The line to the left side of the door is tangent to one column, the line to the right side cuts deeply into the other. If the door had been placed with reference solely to the view from the last stretch of the zigzag road, it ought to stand farther to the west. That it does not so stand must be due to the fact that the architect sought likewise to provide for the view of the observer who approached the Pinakotheke from behind the hexastyle. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the pa.s.sage back of the hexastyle was the normal means of access to the Pinakotheke. The position of the east window in the middle of its wall s.p.a.ce would be quickly, if unconsciously felt by the observer, with the result that the asymmetry of the wall as a whole would not be noticed. Had the normal access to the wing been from directly in front, between the first and second columns (counting from the east), the fact that the windows were not equidistant from the door would have been readily recognized, but, as it is, the observer who entered the portico in the regular way at the east end saw directly in front of him a wall s.p.a.ce pierced by a centrally placed window. If the door had been placed farther west, this advantage would have been lost.

If the zigzag approach we have indicated be correct, it follows that the Pinakotheke was designed also for an observer who stood at the beginning of the straight road through the portal, where it would have produced a unified effect with the general structure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 2

THE PINAKOTHEKE AS SEEN FROM THE BASE OF THE NIKE BASTION. AT LEFT, THE PEDESTAL OF THE MONUMENT TO AGRIPPA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 3

THE PINAKOTHEKE AS SEEN FROM A POINT NEAR THE AXIS OF THE ROADWAY THROUGH THE PROPYLAEA]

It will be readily seen that if the S.W. wing, which was never completed, had been built as an exact counterpart of the N.W. wing, the three parts would have been designed to be seen from a common point at the beginning of the straight road through the portal, and the structure though tripart.i.te would have been a symmetrical unit. Professor Dorpfeld (_Ath. Mitt._, 1885, p. 45 ff.) has shown that the architect planned at one time a south-west wing with a colonnade instead of a closed west wall, and that the present curtailed wing could have been incorporated in the wing as planned, if permission had ever been given to encroach upon adjacent sanctuaries. There is, of course, no gainsaying that a colonnade was at one time projected for the west side of the wing, but does this fact in any wise exclude the possibility of a still earlier plan? The only reason given by Prof. Dorpfeld for the colonnade is that access might be had to the Nike temple. But a closed wall in place of the colonnade would not have made the temple inaccessible so long as there remained at the north-west corner of the wing the steps which afforded a far more convenient approach to the temple for those coming up to the Acropolis. Indeed, it seems quite possible that the architect, Mnesicles, originally planned a south-west wing (Stuart & Revett, _The Antiquities of Athens_, II, V, Pl. III) exactly like the north-west wing, but that he was compelled to give it up, that his compromise of a colonnade was also rejected, and that he had to content himself with the curtailed form in which the wing now exists, but that he so placed the back wall of the chamber that it might ultimately be incorporated in a wing with a colonnade on the west side.

There is, moreover, some reason to suspect that the architect was hostile to the idea of having a temple on the bastion. The Propylaea and the temple are obviously not features of a harmonious structural plan.

The Propylaea as the crowning gateway of the acropolis demanded an un.o.bstructed outlook toward the west. The presence of the little temple obstructs that outlook. When one learns that the senate voted the construction of the temple in, or shortly before, 446 B.C., (?f. ???., 1897, p. 179), that is, at a time when we fairly a.s.sume that the Periclean building plans for the acropolis were about ready, he is justified in suspecting that a conservative religious party sought permanently to thwart the builders in their disregard of sanctuaries by placing a temple to Athena Nike on the bastion. That the opposition of the priesthood[2] checked completely the intention of Pericles and his architects is shown by the fact that foundations were never laid for the walls which would have stood either in the precinct of Artemis Brauronia, or in that of Athena Nike.

The most suggestive chapter in the struggle between priest and architect is the last. When the architect was forced to abandon the idea of building a colonnade, he hoped that he could extend the south wall of the wing 30 cm. west of its present position so as to align it with the third column of the north colonnade. The evidence for this is the poros blocks under the floor of the wing which project just far enough west to have supported a pavement of marble slabs terminating at the western side of the column (see the photograph in _Jb. Arch. Inst._, 1906, p.

139). These blocks were never intended to serve as a step, for in that case marble would have been used. Had the pavement and anta reached 30 cm. farther, a pier of necessary diameter could have been erected between the anta and the third column of the north facade, and the architrave above the pier could then have been of the same width as that of the north colonnade. But even this slight concession was denied; the western line of the wing was forced back; a unique pier had to be built and a narrow architrave placed upon it (Bohn, _op. cit._, Taf. XVI).

Even the poros blocks where they encroached on the precinct appear to have been hacked away.

In the Propylaea itself, there survives some suggestion of the real att.i.tude of the architect toward the Nike temple and its bastion. The crepidoma of the south-west wing terminates in an anta which was intended to stand free (_Arch. Zeit._, 1880, p. 86; _Jb. Arch. Inst._, 1906, p. 136, fig. 3): "Da.s.s dieser Pfeiler in Form einer Anta gebildet ist, d.h. nach Nord und Sud um ein wenig vorspringt, beweist da.s.s hier ursprunglich ein selbstandiger Abschluss geplant war, genau wie an der Nordhalle." The objection of Wolters (_Bonner Studien_, p. 95) does not invalidate Bohn's conclusion. The former a.s.sumes that the blocks for the two corresponding antae were ordered by the architect without his specifying for which anta the several blocks were intended. Since the blocks are of different height, it seems safe to infer that the stone-cutter knew exactly the place of each. Another important fact is that the anta in question inclines 3 cm. to the west. Dorpfeld who publishes this valuable observation in _Ath. Mitt._, 1911, p. 55, says: "Fur das Ende einer Mauer ist ein uberneigen des oberen Teiles nach aussen ganz unerhort. Wir durfen also mit Sicherheit behaupten da.s.s die beiden Seitenwande des Vorplatzes der Propylaen nicht beendet sind, sondern nach dem Plane des Mnesikles weiter nach Westen als Marmorwande mit mindestens je einer zweiten Ante fortgefuhrt werden sollten. Im Suden sollten die beiden Parastaden augenscheinlich die Treppe zum Nike-Tempel einfa.s.sen, im Norden sollten sie vermutlich eine Tur bilden, die zu dem westlich von der Pinakothek befindlichen tief liegenden Raume fuhrte."

The inference from Professor Dorpfeld's important observation is that the anta was intended to carry a lintel or an architrave reaching west.

The question is just how much of the bastion was to be removed to make room for this extension. The readiness of the architect to encroach upon the precinct of the temple warrants the answer that the whole bastion was to be removed. The anta, as Bohn says, was built to stand free like its counterpart at the N.W. wing. The character of the extension remains a matter of conjecture. Perhaps a colonnade was contemplated.

But if this is true, the question arises how does it happen that the bastion of the temple, which certainly antedates the Propylaea, has a north wall aligned with that of the S.W. wing of the Propylaea. The coincidence must be the result of deliberate plan and is best explained by the supposition that when the bastion was built, the ground plan of the Propylaea and its position were already known. The north wall of the bastion could therefore be built in line with that of the wing. The continuation of the north wall of the bastion was broken away when work on the Propylaea was begun.

Neither Pericles nor Mnesicles gave consent to the erection of the Temple of Wingless Victory. In the leaning anta which was built to stand free one reads their buried hope that the Propylaea might enjoy a finely impressive command of the whole region west of the acropolis, a command unannoyed by the hostile lines of the structurally insignificant temple of Victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 4

PLAN OF THE PROPYLAEA SHOWING THE ZIGZAG ROAD, THE CONJECTURED ROAD (IN DOTTED LINES), AND THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE S.W. WING]

II

THE CARYATID PORCH OF THE ERECHTHEUM

Not the least remarkable feature of the Erechtheum is the Caryatid Porch, which is generally regarded as a creation of the artist's fancy and of no further significance. In the present study an attempt will be made to prove that the maidens serve not only a structural and artistic purpose, but that they also bear a relation in thought to the cult of the temple, notwithstanding the fact that the female figure had been employed by earlier architects merely as a support. If the subject of the frieze of the Erechtheum, like that of the approximately contemporary Parthenon, was appropriately drawn from the life and worship of the G.o.ds of the temple, it is possible that the sculptured maidens of the unique Caryatid Porch also bear a logical relation to the cult of the temple.

In the first place it may be observed that the entrance to the Erechtheum at the Caryatid Porch corresponds in position closely to the south entrance of the Pre-Persian Erechtheum. The archaic pedimental sculpture of poros which is now in the Acropolis Museum (Wiegand, _Porosarchitektur der Akropolis zu Athen_, Taf. 14; Petersen, _Die Burgtempel der Athenaia_, p. 22, abb. 2) gives us a view of the early temple as seen from the south. Close to the west side of the temple, the sacred olive of Athena appears above a low wall, just as in a later period, it stood close to the west facade of the Erechtheum and appeared above the south wall of the Pandroseum. A precinct wall ran west from the south-west corner of both the earlier and later Erechtheum. Along this wall in the pedimental sculpture figures are pa.s.sing toward the temple. They have come from the direction of the Propylaea. A procession moving from the Propylaea to the Caryatid Porch had exactly the background of the sculptured figures. The correspondence is complete when one notes that these figures are moving toward an entrance which answers to the later Caryatid Porch.

A further point of value is that the female figures in the procession carried something on their heads, as is shown by their raised but broken left arms. The position of the larger one which was intended to be seen in front view is not certain because it was not attached to the wall like the smaller female figure. It stood probably in the portico and may have served as a Caryatid. Petersen (_op. cit._, p. 27) thinks these figures represent Arrephoroi rather than Canephoroi and his opinion is very reasonable. The Arrephoroi annually carried some mysterious object on their heads to the temple of Athena and Erechtheus.

The procession including Arrephoroi moving toward an entrance which was the predecessor of the Caryatid Porch suggests an explanation of the fact that the latter porch was not for common use. A restricted use of the Caryatid Porch is a certain inference from the following facts. The opening at the north-east corner of the porch is narrow and the step up to it is twenty inches. If this means of access to the temple had been used by the public, the step would have been lower and convenient.

Again, the delicate base mouldings of the building which run under this opening would have been worn if the opening had been frequently used (Frazer, _Pausanias_, II, p. 337). Frazer's conclusion is that the entrance was reserved for priests.

This entrance like its predecessor was perhaps used by the Arrephoroi.

If it was the entrance especially reserved for them, then the Caryatids may very appropriately be regarded as statues of Arrephoroi. They adorn their own porch. To such an identification the objection may be made that the Caryatids are fully developed forms whereas the Arrephoroi were girls between the ages of seven and eleven (Bekker, _Anecdota Graeca_, I. p. 202, s. v. ????f??e??) but a structural necessity for heavier, fuller forms justified the license of the architect. The Caryatids are called ???a? in the building inscriptions.[3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 5

PROCESSION OF ARREPHOROI. A SCENE ON AN ARCHAIC AMPHORA]

The interpretation of the Caryatids as Arrephoroi is confirmed by a scene (Fig. 5)[4] on an archaic amphora which also makes possible a better understanding of the Porch as a whole. The amphora which is now in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston is published by De Ridder in _B.

C. H._, 1898, p. 467 and pl. VI, and by Caskey in _Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin_, Vol. VII (1909), No. 38. In the scene on the neck of this amphora appears a priestess followed by four maidens who bear upon their heads a long chest. De Ridder compares the four maidens with the Athenian Canephoroi. Certain suggestive points may be noted. The maidens are four in number. Ancient writers with the exception of Pausanias tell us that there were four Arrephoroi at Athens.[5] The front of the Caryatid Porch consists of four. Nor do comparisons stop here. The architrave which the Caryatids (Arrephoroi) carry may be compared with the long chest which the maidens bear on their heads, and the discs on the architrave with the discs which ornament the chest. The discs on the architrave are usually explained as a subst.i.tute for a frieze, but the logic of such subst.i.tution is quite unclear. They are simply the ornaments which decorated the mysterious burden of the Arrephoroi.

The ceremony in the course of which the Arrephoroi carried the chest may have had to do with a cult of the heroized dead. Tradition has it that Erechtheus who was closely a.s.sociated with Athena was buried in the Erechtheum. The discs on the box and on the dress of the bearers suggest those which were found in such numbers in the Mycenaean shaft-graves.[6]

But whatever the character of the ceremony, it had to do with the cult which was housed in the Erechtheum.

The amphora just referred to is a Boeotian fabric, but that fact does not nullify the importance of its bearing upon the problem in hand. The Boeotian potter may have appropriated the scene from an Athenian source.

The comparative study of this amphora, the archaic pedimental sculpture and the Caryatid Porch seem to justify the following conclusions. The Caryatid Porch is a bold translation into marble of the Arrephoroi and the disc-covered chest they carried upon their heads to the joint temple of Athena and Erechtheus. The maidens are a particularly appropriate adornment of the porch which was reserved for their living prototypes.

The corresponding entrance of the Pre-Persian joint temple was also used by the Arrephoroi and may have had Caryatids in place of columns. If so the later temple reproduced a feature of the earlier temple just as the equally unique sculptured drums of the earlier Artemisium at Ephesus were reproduced in its successor. In a word the Caryatid Porch is not an arbitrary creation but is related in thought to the cult of the temple.