The temple was visited by Pausanias, who describes it as being situated at the village of Bassae on Mount Cotylion, about five miles from Phigaleia. Pausanias states that the temple and its roof were alike built of stone, and that it might be counted among the temples of the Peloponnesus, second only to that of Tegea, for beauty of material and fineness of proportion. He adds that the temple was dedicated to Apollo Epicurios (the Helper), because the god had stayed a plague at Phigaleia in the time of the Peloponnesian war. The architect was Ictinos, the builder of the Parthenon (Paus. viii., 41, 5). The date of the temple is therefore about 430 b.c., although it is doubtful whether the plague in Arcadia was connected with the more celebrated pestilence at Athens.
The temple is built of the light grey limestone of the surrounding mountains. The sculptures, tiles, lacunaria, and capitals of the interior architecture were all of marble, which was probably obtained in the neighbourhood. The form of the building is that known as amphiprostyle peripteral hexastyle. The temple consisted of a central cella with a pronaos and opisthodomos, and was surrounded by a Doric colonnade, having six columns at the ends and fifteen columns at the sides. The pronaos and opisthodomos were each bounded by two Doric columns between antae, surmounted by metopes. The cella contained ten Ionic columns engaged in buttresses which connected them with the side walls. Towards the south end of the cella was a single Corinthian column, of remarkable form, which is now lost. Beyond it was the temple image, which by a peculiar arrangement is thought to have looked to the east, towards a side door, the orientation of the temple being nearly north and south. It has been thought that this arrangement may show that an ancient shrine was embodied in the later temple. (Curtius, Pelop., i., p. 329; Michaelis, Arch. Zeit., 1876, p. 161). The frieze was internal, and passed round the cella, with the exception of that portion which is south of the Corinthian column. (Compare the ground plan, fig. 22, and the view, plate xi.)
Fig. 22.—Plan of the Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia.
The temple was discovered by a French architect, Bocher, in November, 1765 (Chandler, Travels in Greece, 1776, p. 295). For descriptions of the architecture and sculpture, see Stackelberg, Der Apollotempel zu Bassae, in Arcadien, 1826; Donaldson, in Stuart, 2nd ed., vol. IV.; Blouet, Expédition scientifique de Morée, II; Museum Marbles, IV.; Leake, Travels in the Morea, II., chap. xii., p. 1; Ellis, Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles, II., p. 175; Cockerell, The Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina, and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, near Phigaleia, in Arcadia, 1860; Overbeck, Gr. Plast., 3rd ed., I., p. 449; Murray, II., p. 169; Wolters, Nos. 880-912. For literature specially relating to the frieze, see below, p. [279]. Views and plans of the temple are exhibited in a table case.
Architectural Fragments.
505. Two fragments of the cymatium cornice, with a pattern of palmettes alternating with palmettes of a plainer form, springing from acanthus leaves as on the cornice of the Erechtheion. The member to which these fragments belong surmounted the pediments.
Marble; height, 1 foot ⅛ inch; width, 4 feet 2¾ inches. The left-hand fragment is engraved in Mus. Marbles, IV., vignette. Synopsis, Nos. 26, 27; Cockerell, Phigaleia, pl. 6; Ellis, Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles, II., p. 212.
506. Fragment of a Doric capital, from a column of the external colonnade.