The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 2 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter I.

§ 1. Subjects of the present book. § 2. Simplicity of the dwellings of the Dorians. § 3. Achæan style of buildings. § 4. Character of the Doric architecture.

1. Having examined the political institutions of the Doric states, we next proceed to consider their private life and domestic economy; which two subjects were so intimately connected in the habits of this race, that we shall not attempt to separate them by any exact line of distinction. Our observations will be confined to those matters which appear most to exhibit the peculiar character of the Dorians. For which purpose, having first considered their domestic conveniences, such as dwellings, &c., we will proceed to their domestic relations, their arts, and literature.

2. The dwellings of the Dorians were plain and simple. By a law of Lycurgus the doors of every house were to be fashioned only with the saw, and the ceiling with the axe;[1226] not that the legislator intended [pg 266] to abolish altogether the science of architecture, but merely to restrain it to its proper objects, viz., temples and public buildings, and to prevent it from purveying to private luxury. The kings of Greece in Homer's time lived not only in spacious, but also richly ornamented houses, the walls of which glittered with brass, silver, gold, amber, and ivory; but no such splendour was seen in the dwellings of the Heraclide princes. The palace of the two kings of Sparta was said to have been built by Aristodemus at the taking of the town; here Agesilaus lived after the manner of his ancestors; the doors even in his time being, according to Xenophon's somewhat exaggerated expression, those of the original building.[1227] Hence Leotychidas the elder (490 B.C.) asked his host at Corinth (which city had early risen to riches and luxury), on seeing the ceiling ornamented with sunken panels (φατνώματα), “whether the trees in Corinth were naturally four-cornered.”[1228] The houses at Sparta, however, notwithstanding their rude structure, were probably spacious and commodious; in front there was generally a court-yard, separated by a wall from the street,[1229] and containing a large portico. The towns of Peloponnesus were for the most part irregularly built, whereas the Ionians had early learnt to lay out their streets in straight lines,[1230] a custom which Hippodamus [pg 267] of Miletus succeeded in spreading over the rest of Greece. It was probably this architect who in the year 445 B.C. laid out the plan of Thurii[1231] in exact squares, with streets at right angles;[1232] and the same who in his old age built the city of Rhodes (407 B.C.), the plan of which was designed with such perfect symmetry, that, according to the expression of the astonished ancients, it seemed like one house.[1233]

3. The principles of Lycurgus, however, we repeat did not in the least degree retard the progress of real architecture. Indeed we know that in the embellishment of their sacred edifices the Dorians employed a style of building which they themselves invented, from the strict principles of which they never deviated, and which at the same time they took the utmost care to bring to perfection. That they were in strictness the original inventors of this style of architecture has been first satisfactorily proved by the remarkable discoveries of modern times, which have laid open to us the monuments of the unknown ages of Greece in all their strange peculiarities. The treasury of Atreus is indeed the only example now extant of a class of buildings doubtless once very numerous;[1234] but its paraboloidal construction distinguishes [pg 268] it as well from the later Grecian as the oriental style of architecture. Near this structure some fragments of columns have been discovered by modern travellers,[1235] remarkable both for the variety of their forms and the richness of their ornaments; still the spot on which they were found, as well as their singular shape, leave no doubt that they belong to the same unknown period. They consist, first, of the base of a fluted column, with a plinth, and also a torus of elliptical outline, decorated with an alternation of projecting and receding compartments, the former of which have in some cases an ornament of spiral lines; secondly, a fragment of the shaft of a column of bronze-coloured marble, similarly ornamented with compartments; thirdly, a very small fragment of a capital; and, lastly, a tablet of white marble, with a species of ornament in imitation of shells. There are in the British Museum two tablets of light green and dark red marble, both taken from the treasury of Atreus, which have the spiral lines above mentioned, and are worked very elaborately, though without mathematical precision.[1236] We have given this description of a style of architecture, not strictly belonging to our subject, in order to direct the reader's attention to these most remarkable remains of Grecian sculpture, which [pg 269] are quite sufficient to convince us that the building to which they belong, thus adorned with party-coloured stones, and probably covered in the interior with plates of bronze, may be reckoned as the monument of a time when a semi-barbarous style of architecture prevailed throughout Greece.

4. In direct contrast with the above is the simple unornamented character and unobtrusive grandeur of the style unanimously called by the ancients the Doric.[1237] It appears certain that the first hints of this order were borrowed from buildings constructed of wood, a fact which I cannot reconcile with the supposition of a foreign origin. For we should thus lose sight altogether of the gradual and regular progress by which it advanced to maturity, and suppose that the improvements of foreign artificers, with their peculiar principles, and those of native architects, looking only to the original structure of wood, were blended, or rather violently confused together. Could anything be more natural than that the long surface of the principal beams should be imitated in stone, that the cross-beams with the Doric triglyph should be laid over these, the intervals or metopes being by degrees covered with marble, whilst the cornice, in imitation [pg 270] of carpenters' work, was allowed to project in bold relief? The roof perhaps was for some time allowed to end in a slope on each side; Corinth was the first place where the front and hind part were finished off with a pediment; the tympanum being adorned with statues of ancient clay-work.[1238] Such was the origin of the Doric temple, of which early models have been preserved in the Doric towns of Corinth and Pæstum, in Ægina, and the Doric colonies of Sicily.

We cannot however suppose it to have been the opinion of the historian of ancient architecture,[1239] that the artistical character of the Doric architecture may be satisfactorily derived from wooden buildings. It is the essence of this art to connect, by the varieties of form and proportion, a peculiar association of ideas with works intended merely for purposes of necessity. The Doric character, in short, created the Doric architecture. In the temples of this order the weight to be supported is intentionally increased, and the architrave, frieze, and cornice, of unusual depth; but the columns are proportionably strong, and placed very close to each other; so that, in contemplating the structure, our astonishment at the weight supported is mingled with pleasure at the security imparted by the strength of the columns underneath. This impression of firmness and solidity is increased by the rapid tapering of the column, its conical shape giving it an appearance of strength; while the diminution beginning immediately at the base, and the straight line not being, as in other orders, softened by the interposition of the swelling, gives a severity of character to the order.

With this rapid diminution is also connected the bold projection of the echinus (or quarter-round) of the capital; which likewise creates a striking impression, particularly if its outline is nearly rectilineal. The alternation of long unornamented surfaces with smaller rows of decorated work awakens a feeling of simple grandeur, without appearing either monotonous or fatiguing. The harmony spread over the whole becomes more conspicuous when contrasted with the dark shadows occasioned by the projecting drip of the cornice; above, the magnificent pediment crowns the whole. Thus in this creation of art we find expressed the peculiar bias of the Doric race to strict rule, simple proportion, and pure harmony.