Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward

by Frederick William Beechey; H. W. Beechey

It may here be remarked, with respect to what appears to have been the established colour of the triglyphs at Cyrene, that there is a singular correspondence between this practice of the Cyreneans and that which is attributed by Vitruvius to the artificers of early times when wood was used instead of stone in the construction of their buildings. For the parts which, in the wooden structures alluded to, corresponded to the triglyphs of later periods, are said by this author to have been covered with blue wax; and we have already stated that blue was the prevailing colour of the triglyphs in buildings of all classes at Cyrene. It would thus appear that the colours, like the forms, of buildings, were adopted in imitation of early custom; and this circumstance will alone sufficiently account for the uniformity, in point of colour, of one building with another; and may be considered as a reason why fancy or caprice were not allowed, in these instances, to have their usual weight among a people who were strenuously attached to the practices and customs of their ancestors. “In imitation of these early inventions, and of works executed in timber,” (says Vitruvius, in the words of Mr. Wilkins, his English translator,) “the ancients, in constructing their edifices of stone or marble, adopted the forms which were there observed to exist. It was a general practice among the artificers of former times to lay beams transversely upon the walls; the intervals between them were then closed, and the whole surmounted with coronæ and fastigia of pleasing forms, executed in wood. The projecting parts were afterwards cut away, so that the ends of the beams and the walls were in the same plane; but the sections presenting a rude appearance, tablets, formed like the triglyphs of more modern buildings, and covered with blue wax, were affixed to them, by which expedient the ends, which before offended the eye, now produced a pleasing effect. Thus the ancient disposition of the beams supporting the roof is the original to which we may attribute the introduction of triglyphs into Doric buildings.” (Wilkins’s Vitruvius, vol. i. p. 63, 4.)

Whatever may be the truth of these remarks of Vitruvius respecting the origin of the triglyph, it is singular that there should be so decided a coincidence between the practice which he has mentioned and that of the Cyreneans; we have in consequence been induced to lay the passage just quoted before the reader, and to submit to those who are most competent to decide the question, how far this analogy may be the result of accident, or how far it may be safely considered as obtaining in compliance with ancient custom.

Among the tombs which have been excavated on the northern face of the heights of Cyrene there are several on a much larger scale than the rest; some of these appear to have been public vaults and contain a considerable number of cellæ; others seem to have been appropriated to single families, and in two instances we found large excavated tombs containing each a sarcophagus of white marble ornamented with figures and wreaths of flowers raised in relief on the exteriors. We suspect these to be Roman; but the workmanship of both is excellent and the polish still remains upon them in great perfection.

We have already mentioned a ravine to the westward of Cyrene, on the brink of which stands a portion of the aqueduct of which traces have been described as still remaining above the fountain.

This ravine, which forms the bed of a stream of excellent water, is highly picturesque and romantic; it deepens gradually in its course towards the sea, and is thickly overgrown with clusters of oleander and myrtle which are blooming in the greatest luxuriance amidst the rocks overhanging the stream. On the western side of the ravine we found that galleries had been formed, similar to those already described on the northern face of the rock of Cyrene, and that tombs had equally been excavated there to which the galleries in question conducted. The deep marks of chariot wheels along the galleries prove that these also had formerly been used as roads; and the romantic beauty of their situation, on the very brink of the steep descent to the bed of the torrent below, must have rendered them very delightful ones. There seems to have been originally a parapet wall along the dangerous parts of the road, (we mean those where the descent is very abrupt,) for there are considerable traces of one still extant about three feet from the ground: in some places, however, (where the road is not more than three feet in width, with the high, perpendicular rock on one side, and an abrupt descent to the torrent on the other,) there is no such defence now remaining; and the passage from one part of the gallery to the other is not here quite so safe for nervous people as it might be. The steep sides of the descent are thickly overgrown with the most beautiful flowering shrubs and creepers, and tall trees are growing in the wildest forms and positions above and below the roads. The Duke of Clarence (when the choice of his death was proposed to him) had a fancy to be drowned in a butt of malmsey; and we think, if we found ourselves in a similar dilemma, that we should pitch upon some part of this charming ravine, as the spot from which we could hurl ourselves through myrtles and oleanders into the pure stream which dashes below, with more pleasure than one could leap with from life into death in most other places that we know of. We must, however, confess that in passing along the dangerous parts of the galleries here alluded to, no such fancy ever entered our heads; and we took especial care, notwithstanding the beauty of the descent, to keep closer to the high rock on one side of the road than to the edge of the charming precipice on the other.

There is a good deal of building, of very excellent construction, about the stream which runs along the bottom of the ravine; and the water seems originally to have been inclosed, and covered in, and (we think) also raised to a considerable height above its bed, (as appears to have been the case in the fountain of Apollo,) to be distributed over the country in its neighbourhood. It is difficult to say in what precise manner this end may have been accomplished; and whether or not the water so raised was connected with the aqueduct which has already been mentioned as running down to this ravine from the edge of the cliff above the principal fountain; and which we have also stated appears to have crossed it, and to have been continued on the opposite side. As the supply from both fountains is plentiful and constant it would be well worth the labour and expense of preserving; and the level of both would render them comparatively useless to the town, as well as to the high ground about it, unless some means of raising the water were resorted to. They who had leisure to examine the remains of building connected with these two streams, attentively; and were able, at the same time, to bring to the search a sufficient knowledge of the principles of hydraulics and hydrostatics, would find the inquiry a very interesting one; for our own part we confess that, without enjoying either of these advantages, we were usually tempted to bestow a portion of our time, when passing along the ravine in question, in trying to collect from the existing remains how far they may have been conducive to the object we have attributed to them. At something less than a quarter of a mile from the commencement of this ravine, the stream which flows down it is joined by another, issuing out from the rock on its western side, and a basin has been formed in the rock itself for its reception. In front of this third fountain there are considerable traces of building, which are however so much buried by the accumulation of soil, and encumbered with shrubs and vegetation, that nothing satisfactory can be made out from them. The spot is now (like that in front of the fountain of Apollo) a favourite retreat for the sheep and cattle of the Bedouins who occasionally visit Cyrene; and our appearance often put them to a precipitate flight, and the old women and children, who usually tended them, to a good deal of trouble in collecting them together again. These annoyances (we must say, in justice to the sex) were borne for the most part very good-naturedly; and we usually joined them in pursuit of the family quadrupeds with every disposition to assist them to the utmost. Indeed the Arab women in general, of all ranks and ages, are remarkable for patience and good nature; and we have often seen both these qualities in our fair African friends, put to very severe trials without suffering any apparent diminution. Their greatest failings seem to be vanity and jealousy; and these are surely too natural and too inconsiderable to merit any serious reprehension, more especially in a barbarous nation. Curiosity is at the same time, with them, as it is said to be with the sex in general, a quality in very extensive circulation; and if we could have stopped to answer all the various odd questions which the good ladies of Cyrene proposed to us, we should have employed the whole day in replying to them. By the help of a few little trinkets, however, which we usually carried about with us, we contrived to put an end to the conversation, without any offence, whenever it began to exceed moderate limits; and continued our route under a shower of pious wishes that the blessing of God might attend us.

In passing along the galleries we have mentioned in this ravine, there are a great many excavated tombs, some of which are very beautifully finished, and one of them presents the only example which we remember to have met with at Cyrene of a mixture of two orders of architecture in the same part of a building—the portico in front of this tomb being supported by Ionic columns, surmounted with a Doric entablature. The whole portico is formed out of the rock itself, which has been left in the manner formerly alluded to, and advances a few feet before the wall of the chamber in which the door is excavated. The proportions are bad, and no part of the tomb has anything particular to recommend it to notice beyond the peculiarity we have stated it to possess; but as it is the only instance which we observed of the kind, we have thought it as well to advert to it. The tympanum is here placed immediately over the zophorus, without any cornice intervening, and the mutules are in consequence omitted[13]. Like many other excavated tombs at Cyrene, the one now in question has no cellæ beyond the chamber; and the places for the bodies were sunk in the floor itself and covered with tablets of stone. In such cases we often see that two, or more, bodies have been ranged parallel with each other round the sides of the chamber, in the manner represented in the ground-plans (page 464), a circumstance which never occurs in the cellæ, as we have already stated above.

The galleries which are formed in one side of this ravine lead round the cliff into another valley, somewhat broader, in which are also several excavated tombs. In one of these, which has been furnished with a Doric portico, Mr. Campbell discovered the suite of beautiful little subjects which we have given with all the fidelity we could command in the plate (page 456). They are painted on the zophorus of an interior façade, of which we have given the elevation; and each composition occupies one of the metopes, the pannel of which appears to have been left plain in order to set off the colours of the figures. The outline of these highly finished little groups has been very carefully put in with red: the local colour of the flesh and draperies have then been filled in with body colour, and the lights touched on sharp, with a full and free pencil, which reminded us strongly of the beautiful execution of the paintings at Herculaneum and Pompeii. There is no other attempt at light and shadow in any of them but that of deepening the local colour of the drapery in two or three places, where the folds are intended to be more strongly marked than in others; the flesh being left (so far as can at present be ascertained) with no variation of the local colour produced either by light or shade. The colours employed are simply red, blue, and yellow; but whatever may be their nature they still are brilliant in the extreme, and appear to have stood remarkably well. There seem to have been two reds used in these pictures, (for so we may call the several groups in question,) one a transparent colour resembling madder lake, the other like that colour with a mixture of vermilion or of some other bright, opaque red. These colours appear so rich and brilliant, when sprinkled with water[14], that one would imagine they had been passed over gold leaf, or some similar substance, as we observe to have been the case in pictures of Giotto and Cimabue, as well as in the earlier works of the Venetian and other schools. We are not, however, of opinion that this practice was adopted in the paintings now before us, although the brilliancy of their colours would suggest the employment of some such expedient. The yellow appears equally to have been of two kinds; an orange colour was first used to fill in the outline, and the lights were touched on with a brighter yellow over it; the whole together presenting that golden, sunny hue, so delightful to the eye both in nature and art. The same process seems to have been adopted with respect to the blues; but the lights, in this instance, appear rather to have been made by a mixture of white with the local colour than by a second blue of a lighter shade.

It may be inferred from the copies which we have made of these designs, (which, although they are as good as we could make them, naturally fall very short of the perfection of the originals,) that the drawing of the figures is in excellent style, and the actions at once expressive, easy, and graceful; what we have most failed in is the expression of the countenances, which, though produced merely by a single outline, we were wholly unable to copy at all to our satisfaction. The characters and features are what are usually called Grecian, and remind us strongly, in the originals, of those of the figures represented on some of the most highly finished Greek (or in other words, Etruscan) vases. The draperies are well arranged, and executed with great taste and freedom; they appear, like the other parts of the compositions, to have been painted at once, without any alteration, and with the greatest facility imaginable. It will be observed that the turban has in several instances been adopted; and the shape of some of these is more oriental than any which we remember to have seen in Greek designs. It is singular also that all the figures appear to have been black, with the exception of that of the old man in the last group, which has certainly been red; yet there is nothing either Moorish or Ethiopian in the characters represented; which, from the outlines, we should suppose to be Grecian. We have no solution to offer for this apparent inconsistency; and will not venture to suggest what may have been the subjects of the several pieces. They appear to represent some connected story; yet the same persons are not certainly introduced in all, if indeed in any two of the compositions. In the first group two females, both of them young, appear engaged in some interesting conversation. The second may perhaps represent the same persons, but it is difficult to say whether the rod in the hand of the standing figure is raised for the purpose of chastisement, or whether it is intended to represent the performance of some magic ceremony. The finger which is raised towards the lips of this figure seems rather to be indicative of imposing silence than of conveying admonition; and the arm and hand of the person kneeling appear to be more expressive of veneration or submission, than of either alarm or supplication. There is a curious appearance on the head of this figure which somewhat resembles in form the twisted lock of the Egyptian Horus, but its colour is decidedly red, while that of the other parts of the head are uncertain. The lower part of this figure has been so much rubbed as to be nearly unintelligible, and the face has disappeared altogether. A similar accident has happened to one of the preceding figures, the lower part of which is not now distinguishable. In the third group we see a female figure with a helmet closely fitted to the shape of the head, bearing on her shoulder an ark, or canistrum; a second female, attired in white, is represented walking, and looking back towards the other, whom she is beckoning to advance. The folds of the white drapery have nearly disappeared, and little more is left of it than the outline. The helmet of the first-mentioned figure of this group is painted red, and the back part of it, with a portion of the arm, is rubbed out. The fourth design represents a young man asleep, and a matron apparently watching over him, who appears, from her countenance and action, as well as from the garment which is thrown over her head, to be labouring under some affliction. In the fifth we observe a female figure sitting, and apparently employed in spinning; by her side is a youth of ten or twelve years old, with a turban of a different form from those with which some of the other figures are furnished: this appears to be merely a family-party, and the careless and schoolboy-like action of the youth whose thumbs are stuck into the folds of his garment, is well expressive of youthful unconcern. The last group represents an old man in a reclining position, who appears to be welcoming or taking leave of his son, who is kneeling by the side of his couch: the complexion of the old man is decidedly red, but that of the youth is very uncertain, as this picture has suffered more than any of the rest. The head and trunk of the old man, so far as they remain, are designed in the best style of Grecian art, and, indeed, we may say of the groups in general that they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the figure, as well as great taste in the mode of displaying it; and we cannot but regret that the rude hands of barbarians, rather than those of time, have deprived us of any part of these beautiful compositions. Enough however remains to make them very interesting; and we present them to the public as examples of Grecian painting at Cyrene, with the impression that they will not be thought unworthy relics of the genius and talent of the colony.

The colours employed in the architecture of this tomb (so far as they at present remain) are faithfully given in the elevation of the interior façade, (page 452), and appear to have been confined to the entablature, and to the capitals and plinths of the columns and pilasters.