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

by James Fergusson

Forms of Temples.

The arrangements of Grecian Doric temples show almost less variety than the forms of the pillars, and no materials exist for tracing their gradual development in an historical point of view. The temples at Corinth, and the oldest at Selinus, are both perfect examples of the hexastyle arrangement to which the Greeks adhered in all ages; and though there can be little doubt that the peripteral form, as well as the order itself, was borrowed from Egypt, it still was so much modified before it appeared in Greece, that it would be interesting, if it could be done, to trace the several steps by which the change was effected.

In an architectural point of view this is by no means difficult. The simplest Greek temples were mere cells, or small square apartments suited to contain an image—the front being what is technically called distyle in antis, or with two pillars between antæ, or square pilaster like piers terminating the side walls. Hence the interior enclosure of Grecian temples is called the cell or cella, however large and splendid it may be.

148. Small temple at Rhamnus.

The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus (Woodcut No. [148]), where the opening however can scarcely be called a doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of 4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of this. None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks. To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends, and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No. [149]. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.

149. Plan of Temple of Apollo at Bassæ. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

150. Plan of Parthenon at Athens. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

151. Plan of the great Temple at Selinus. (From Hittorff, ‘Arch. Antique en Sicile.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell; beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each flank.

The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example; still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these temples.

Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. [152] and [154]), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.

A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof between two ranges of column.

152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose, that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this, and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather. It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that without protection of some sort this would very soon have been obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only practically, but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose. The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once; while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface. The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most surpassingly beautiful.