History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

The Temple of Phigalia, or Bassæ, in Arcadia, though stated to have been built by the architect of the Parthenon, shows that the perfection of the monuments last considered was possible only upon Attic ground. The sanctuary of Arcadia was dedicated to Apollo Epicourios in gratitude for the deliverance of the district from the plague of 431 B.C. Its plan (Fig. 159) was excessively long, having fifteen side columns, with a hexastyle front. The elevation offers a remarkable combination of archaic traditional forms and of exaggerated novelties. Though the three incisions of the capital necking are peculiarly primitive, the echinos has become even steeper than it was upon the Parthenon. Ionic sculptured ornaments begin to appear upon the entablature. The inward inclination of the axes of the columns and the curvature of the horizontals have been neglected in Bassæ, as if the architect had not considered it worth while to display such refinements to the uncultivated Arcadians. In the interior of the temple Ionic columns are engaged upon short transverse walls, which project from the sides. These are so remarkably archaic in form (Fig. 165) that it is difficult to explain how Athenian architects, who must have been familiar with the interior columns of the Propylæa and those of the Erechtheion, then in course of construction, could have prepared the designs. An extremely ancient and undeveloped Corinthian capital (Fig. 176) has been found among the ruins of Bassæ; it will be referred to below. Many of the anomalies of the temple would be explained by the assumption that the building occupied the site of a former chapel, the entrance to which had naturally been upon the east, and that the lack of available ground prevented the retention of the original and usual orientation, making the peripteros, as the enlargement of a former fane, open the inner chamber of the naos upon one of the long sides.

Other Attic remains, some of which date from the end of the fifth century, also show traces of the deterioration of the art. Chief among these are the Propylæa of Eleusis and the house of assemblage for those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, known as the Telesterion, a square hypostyle hall, fronted by a portico of twelve columns, apparently without a gable. (Fig. 160.) It is not known how soon after the Persian wars the temples of Rhamnous and Sunion were rebuilt; they may have slightly preceded the age of decline. The increasing love of magnificence and luxury felt among the Greeks was not satisfied with the simple majesty of the Doric style; the Ionic was more and more frequently substituted in preference. The latter had been employed for the Propylæa of the Athenian acropolis, and had appeared independently in smaller temples, and, finally, in the national shrine of Attica, the Erechtheion. The Doric became restricted to porticos and peristyles, and, in double-storied interiors, to the lower order, for which important constructional functions it was fitted by the great solidity of the column. But the desire to simplify the execution of Doric members, and reduce the expense which must have been attendant upon the delicate refinements of curvatures, introduced dry and hard geometrical forms, and the æsthetic value of the style was, for the greater part, lost. An example of this debasement is offered by the portico of Philip upon Delos, where the echinos projects in an absolutely straight line. (Fig. 151.) In the colonies, upon the other hand, even as late as the Roman period, the style was archaistically treated, with a provincial lack of good taste, illustrated by the weak echinos and apophyge of the capital of the so-called Temple of Demeter at Pæstum. (Fig. 152.)

An entirely different manner of building had early appeared by the side of the Doric style, which cannot be accounted of quite equal birth with that eldest male offspring of Hellenic civilization, but, to carry out the simile, should rather be considered as a step-sister. The development of the peripteral plan, the echinos coronation of the channelled shafts, and the entablature of triglyphs, metopes, and mutules, appear autochthonic and purely Greek; while the Ionic style, though adopting the plan and general disposition of the former, was, in its most characteristic details, an importation from Asia. It is not meant by this that the perfected style was not characteristically Hellenic. The Greeks accepted none of the products of their neighbors without a change—a transformation of disposition and detail by their peculiar genius. But the fundamental motives, the elements of the style, in as far as these are not identified with the Doric, had been taken from neighboring Eastern lands of primitive civilization: from the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria.

The Ionic column betrays this relationship in both base and capital. The former consists fundamentally of a tore elevated upon a drum, usually hollowed by a scotia. This tore was employed as a footing for the columns of Nineveh, and is familiar through one example and through representations upon reliefs. From thence it was transplanted to Persia, where, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., it appears with the horizontal channelling found upon the more primitive Ionic monuments. (Fig. 79.) The concave profile of the under plinth is new and Hellenic. The delicate perception of the Greek designer recognized the advantage of this scotia over the clumsy heaviness which had resulted from the tore being placed immediately upon the ground or upon a rectangular slab, and the lower member was made to harmonize with the channelled moulding above it by the emphasis of horizontal lines. It is uncertain whether the slender proportions of the Ionic shaft, so marked in comparison with the strength of the Doric style, is to be attributed to Oriental influences. It agreed as well with the light Ionic entablature and ceiling as did the powerful Doric column with the great weight imposed upon it; and it may be regarded as one of the principles of architectural construction that the strength of the support has ever been originally determined by the weight of the ceiling and superstructure: the column has been adapted to the entablature, not the height of epistyle, frieze and cornice to the diameter of the shaft. With this consideration agreed the desire to attain great elegance and lightness of proportion, peculiar to the Ionic race. The Ionic column, thus made of greater proportional height, had diminution and entasis like the Doric. It differed remarkably in the fluting. A vertical grooving cannot be traced upon the columns of Assyria; upon those of Persia it is similar to the Doric channels, with sharp arrises. The development of the flute itself may perhaps be deemed peculiarly Greek. As painted ornaments were gradually given up, they were replaced by architectural carvings; such sculptured decorations were harmoniously introduced upon the shaft, and the channels were deepened to a semicircular profile. This rendered a change of the arrises necessary, for if the ends of the arcs were to have abutted, as upon the Doric column, the deep flute, with its extremely sharp edge, could only have been executed upon a plane. Upon a convexly curved surface, like that of the cylindrical drums, it would have been impossible to cut semicircular grooves immediately adjoining, as their outlines would have intersected. The sharp arrises were therefore relinquished, and a broad vertical band, the surface of the original cylinder, was left in its place, the play of light and shade which enlivened the body of the shaft being increased by these flutings, but the evidence of the derivation of the channelled column from the polygonal pier was entirely sacrificed, the cylindrical form being characterized as original by the remaining fillets. The carving of the shaft was rendered more difficult from the slight projections left at the top and bottom as transitional members to the base and to the capital. This horizontal fillet was a further gain to the outline of the column, concave and convex surfaces thus alternating from floor to ceiling. The flutings were terminated above and below, before reaching this transverse member, by a semicircle, which agreed with their sectional outline.