Problems in Periclean Buildings

by G. W. Elderkin

Further difficulties of a serious nature are encountered when one attempts to fit the text of Pausanias to the present plan of the whole building (cf. Michaelis, Jb. Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 16 ff). This is what scholars have sought to do with very different and unsatisfactory results, so unsatisfactory that of late there is a tendency on the part of some to deny that any value is to be placed upon the sequence which Pausanias observes in his narrative. Those who believe that the description is something more than a loose statement of the contents of the temple are said to be making assumptions. But the description, taken by itself, seems to be a systematic account, and the burden of proof rests upon those who deny it. The denial is based upon the failure of the account to square with the accepted plan of the interior of the Erechtheum, but such basis is insecure because the interior of the temple has been so completely destroyed as not to permit an absolutely certain restoration by means of the evidence of the building alone. There is no sure warrant for saying in the case of this description that Pausanias has confused his notes.

The traveler has been made to enter the Erechtheum through three different doors. His account, however, is simple and ought not to occasion difficulty. It suggests orderly progression. Before the entrance he found the altar of Zeus; on entering, three altars and the paintings of the Butadae; then in an inner (ἔνδον) room the well and trident-mark; thereafter follows the account of the objects in the cella of Athena. Then he passed to the Pandroseum. The order in this description is simple and natural, and the moment the theory is advanced of a postponement of certain objects for mention later in other connections, that moment the description ceases to be of value so far as the interior arrangement of the Erechtheum is concerned and the way is opened up to the disposition of the contents of the temple in accord with individual choice. The simplicity and naturalness of the description is the best guarantee of an orderly progression by Pausanias, and the only guide where the evidence of the building is insufficient.

In his simple, straightforward account, Pausanias gives not the slightest indication that he left the Erechtheum until he entered the Pandroseum. The present plan of the temple in which east and west cella are separated by a closed wall, compels that assumption. Further, if Pausanias coming from the east entered the Erechtheum by the east door, one is compelled to place in the cella of Athena the altar of Poseidon-Erechtheus and the paintings of the Butadae, which did not demand a cella with an orientation east, and then to place the contents of the ναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς including the xoanon in the western cella where they certainly did not belong; or else with Dörpfeld move the museum into the shadowy old Hekatompedon, thus depriving the goddess of all share in the Erechtheum except that the temple was named after her oldest image in the official inscription of the fifth century.

But neglecting for the moment the objection that Pausanias gives no indication of having left the Erechtheum until he passed to the ναὸς Πανδρόσου, and granting besides that the old Hekatompedon was still standing, one quickly asks why Pausanias, who took things in order, passed by that temple when he approached from the east. Why did he not visit the cellae which lay at the higher level and then proceed to that at a lower level in the west part of the Erechtheum? The fact that the old temple stood a few paces farther west than the Erechtheum does not help one out of the difficulty. The simple and convenient order would have been: Hekatompedon, Erechtheum, temple or temenos of Pandrosus. But instead one has the unintelligible order illustrated in A. J. A., III (1899), p. 368.

If, however, the majority of scholars are right in their belief that Pausanias entered first the west cella of the Erechtheum, then according to the present plan neither the well nor the trident-mark were ἔνδον because the former is placed in the room which is entered directly from the north and south porches (Michaelis, Jb. Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 16). Furtwängler (Masterpieces, p. 435) takes refuge in the theory that Pausanias, immediately after mentioning the altar of Zeus Hypatus before the entrance, adds the three others within the cella in order to get one of his favorite antitheses. The result is hopeless confusion. The three altars which Pausanias mentions as being in the first chamber, Furtwängler distributes in two chambers, neither of which is entered directly from either north or south porch, while in the first chamber Cecrops is established whom Pausanias does not mention. An attempt, which must be characterized as violent, has been made to fit the description of the traveller to the plan of the cella by the assumption (Frazer, Paus., II, 336) that both well and trident-mark were apparently reached from the inner chamber, a sight of the well being afforded to the curious through an opening at the foot of the staircase which led down from the inner chamber into the crypt (cf. Furtwängler, Sitzb. Mün. Akad., 1904, p. 372). But why make Pausanias descend a stairway, for which there is no evidence, to look at indentations in the rock which could be seen from the Porch? Frazer's reason that the passage through the foundation and beneath the floor was for those who wished to examine the indentations closely is exceedingly poor. One can examine the marks from the porch without crawling through the passage, the height of which (1.22 m.) shows that it was not intended to be an ordinary approach, as Michaelis (op. cit., p. 19) rightly observes. Petersen's explanation (op. cit., p. 102) that Pausanias postponed the mention of the trident-mark until he saw the φρέαρ inside the temple is simply another arbitrary violation of a clear statement by the traveler which gives every indication of orderly natural progression.

Notice must be taken at this point of the hole through the floor of the porch close to the wall and at the left of the door. This hole opens into the passage. Nilson (J.H.S., 1901, p. 328) accepts the assertion made in the Πρακτικὰ τῆς ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἐρεχθείου Ἐπιτροπῆς (1853) § 25 that the hole is modern, but since there is not the slightest trace of a scar made by a chisel on the surface of the adjacent block, it is certain that the hole was cut before the slab was set in place, i.e. it is part of the underground system at this place, but no attempt has been made to explain it.

Yet another difficulty is found in the words διπλοῦν γάρ ἐστιν τὸ οἴκημα. After mentioning the altars and paintings in the first room, Pausanias passes to the second with the observation that the οἴκημα is double, to find there (ἔνδον) a well and the marks (σῆμα or σχῆμα) of the trident. In other passages in which Pausanias describes double buildings the natural interpretation is that the first chamber is in front, the front determined by the entrance of the second, because cross-walls in cellae are normally at right angles to the major axis. The north porch at once determines that axis in the west cella of the Erechtheum. In Paus. VI, 20. 3, the first chamber is noted with the words ἐν τῷ ἔμπροσθεν, the second with ἐν τῷ ἐντός. According to the present plan the chambers of the οἴκημα Ἐρεχθείου are one in front of the other for a person only, who enters by the small door in the west wall. For one entering by either of the other doors, the chambers are side by side.

A common objection to all theories about the Erechtheum is that they attribute an unintelligible order to the course taken by Pausanias. Those who think he entered the building by the north porch or the porch of the maidens are compelled to believe that he passed by an eastern entrance only to retrace his steps upstairs and enter later the cella of Athena, and that he then descended again to visit the Pandroseum. Those who believe that Pausanias saw the xoanon of Athena in the Hekatompedon are also compelled to make Pausanias double on his course and furthermore to strain the meaning of συνεχής. The Pandroseum, in which the ναὸς Πανδρόσου must have stood is in close connection with the Erechtheum, and not with the terrace of the Hekatompedon which lay higher and was separated still more by a wall which ran west from the porch of the maidens on the foundation for the peristyle of the old temple. Those who believe that a staircase connected the eastern with the lower western cella of the Erechtheum are at a loss to say why Pausanias did not enter the eastern shrine first, and after describing its contents descend to the western and lower cella, and then proceed to the Pandroseum. In short, the present plan of the Erechtheum will agree with the description of Pausanias cum mula peperit.

The difficulties of the present plan both in the light of the Chandler inscription and the description by Pausanias induce one to believe that the interior of the Erechtheum has been wrongly restored and must therefore be reëxamined.

A Roman foundation has obscured the truth in the temple, namely the foundation which is said to have supported the western of the two interior walls. This foundation, however, lies exactly below the heavy blocks which were inserted by the Romans as the epistyle of a row of piers or columns to support the roof and which served as the successor of the καμπύλη σελίς of Greek times (A. J. A., 1910, p. 291). The weathering on the north wall helps to establish the relation of the foundation to the inserted blocks. This foundation was later used for the wall of the narthex of the church into which the Erechtheum was converted, perhaps as early as the fifth century. The traces of the Greek walls, just east of the north and south doors, show however that, if they belong to a Greek wall which stood on the present foundation, that wall rested not squarely on the foundation but on the eastern side of it. The certain conclusion from these facts is that the foundation was not laid for the Greek wall, whatever the character of the latter may have been. The size of the inserted blocks proves that the Roman work was heavy and demanded a heavy foundation such as exists reaching down to the rock. The traces of the Greek wall however show that it reached up five courses above the orthostates while the presence of the καμπύλη σελίς above proves that this low wall was only a screen-wall and supported nothing. That the foundation is Roman is confirmed on examination of its character which presents a remarkable contrast with the Greek foundation of the west wall of the building. The bed for the Roman foundation was not carefully prepared; just south of the centre the unevenness of the underlying rock is distinctly noticeable. Quite different is the character of the Greek foundation. The rock was carefully cut to receive it. The courses are evenly laid, the interstices between the blocks small. Neither remark applies to the Roman foundation which is the poorest in the building. Finally, this foundation does not key into those for the north and south walls (Fig. 6). The south foundation appears to key into that for the interior wall, but on examination it will be seen that the poros block in question has been cut back by those who enlarged the cistern. This block originally projected in as far as the poros blocks in the same course but east of the interior wall. If the interior foundation had keyed into the foundations of the outside walls its Greek character would have been beyond question.