A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

Doric Temples in Greece.

The age of the Doric temple at Corinth is not, it is true, satisfactorily determined; but the balance of evidence would lead us to believe that it belongs to the age of Cypselus, or about 650 B.C. The pillars are less than four diameters in height, and the architrave—the only part of the superstructure that now remains—is proportionately heavy. It is, indeed, one of the most massive specimens of architecture existing, more so than even the rock-cut prototype at Beni Hasan. As a work of art, it fails from excess of strength, a fault common to most of the efforts of a rude people, ignorant of the true resources of art, and striving, by the expression of physical power alone, to attain its objects.

Next in age to this is the little temple at Ægina.[^[131]] Its date, too, is unknown, though, judging from the character of its sculpture, it probably belongs to the middle of the sixth century before Christ.

134. Temple at Ægina restored. No scale.

We know that Athens had a great temple on the Acropolis, contemporary with these, and the frusta of its columns still remain, which, after its destruction by the Persians, were built into the walls of the citadel. It is more than probable that all the principal cities of Greece had temples commensurate with their dignity before the Persian War. Many of these were destroyed during that struggle; but it also happened then, as in France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries, that the old temples were thought unworthy of the national greatness, and of that feeling of exaltation arising from the successful result of the greatest of their wars, so that almost all those which remained were pulled down or rebuilt. The consequence is, that nearly all the great temples now found in Greece were built in the forty or fifty years which succeeded the defeat of the Persians at Salamis and Platæa.

One of the oldest temples of this class is that best known as the Theseion or Temple of Theseus at Athens, now recognised as the Temple of Hephaistos mentioned in the “Attica” of Pausanias. By an analysis of the architectural character of the Temple Dr. Dorpfield contends that it is posterior to the Parthenon and not anterior, as is generally supposed.

Of all the great temples, the best and most celebrated is the Parthenon, the only octastyle Doric Temple in Greece, and in its own class undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world. It is true it has neither the dimensions nor the wondrous expression of power and eternity inherent in Egyptian temples, nor has it the variety and poetry of the Gothic Cathedral; but for intellectual beauty, for perfection of proportion, for beauty of detail, and for the exquisite perception of the highest and most recondite principles of art ever applied to architecture, it stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the glory of Greece and a reproach to the rest of the world.

Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different, this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.

The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera, which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required renewal.[^[132]] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at Bassæ; a third hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many buildings dating from the Roman occupation.

To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its execution belongs to a later date.

The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.[^[133]]