Plate L. THE “THESEUM,” ATHENS
English Photo Co., Athens
were the Hermes of Praxiteles, which belongs to the next epoch, and the temple pediments which I have already mentioned. At Delphi the long-robed charioteer, one of the noblest fifth-century bronzes, was the most conspicuous treasure, but one very fine athletic statue is worthy of mention. This is the Agias, an athletic portrait in marble, executed by Lysippus, fourth of the great masters of Greek sculpture.[67] Traces were found of a great number of small shrines which acted as the treasuries of the various states and were grouped round the great temple of Apollo, and some of these, notably the Cnidian, Siphnian, and Athenian treasuries, have yielded important relics of sculpture. The holy precinct was crowded with treasuries, shrines, votive groups, and colonnades. It included a theatre, a circular dancing-floor, and a colossal statue of Apollo. The Altis at Olympia was similarly filled with treasuries; round it just outside were the stadium, the hippodrome, the palæstra, and the gymnasium.
Hidden away in a remote mountain glen of Arcadia there was a masterpiece of Ictinus, which is now a lovely ruin amid the most solitary and romantic scenery. This is the temple of Phigaleia, the modern Bassæ.[68] It was dedicated by the Phigaleians to Apollo the Helper in consequence of an epidemic. They sent for the most famous architect in Greece soon after the completion of the Parthenon. Ictinus used, since his clients were poor mountaineers, the local limestone for the building, but the roof and sculptures were of imported marble. He had also to modify the normal Doric plan in accordance with local religious conventions of sun-worship. In the cella of the temple the interior Ionic columns are joined to the wall by short stone partitions, thus forming a row of five chapels on each side. A door was made in the east side to shed the light of the rising sun full on the statue of the sun-god; for the main building is unique among Greek temples in running north and south. The narrow frieze which ran round the interior of the cella represented, as usual, contests of Greeks and Amazons, Centaurs and Lapithæ.[69] It is now in the British Museum. It is of the very finest workmanship, and here we see a system of design hardly less subtle than that of the Parthenon frieze applied to scenes of vigour and violence. The frieze was removed bodily by Baron von Stackelberg and bought at auction by the British Government for £15,000.
We find another example of the versatile genius of Ictinus at Eleusis. Eleusis was the most important town of Attica except Athens, and had long been independent. It formed an agricultural centre for the plain around it. Its famous mysteries were of agricultural significance to start with, and were chiefly concerned with the worship of Demeter and Persephone in their characters as grain-givers. It was no doubt a later development when the Greeks began to graft the deepest religious and metaphysical doctrines relating to immortality upon them. We can easily see how rustic rites celebrating the death and rebirth of the cornfields should come to bear this exalted meaning for reflective people. Every year on the fifth night of the Greater Eleusinian festival in spring the Athenian people trooped out along the Sacred Way in a torchlight procession. Only the initiated, the Mystæ, were allowed to witness the secret ceremony, which seems to have consisted of a ritual marriage. For most illuminating suggestions as to its real nature I would refer the reader to Mr. J. C. Lawson’s recent book on “Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion.”
The Great Temple of the Mysteries was designed, but not completed, by Ictinus, for the Peloponnesian War put a stop to the Eleusinian worshippers from Athens—not the least of their deprivations. But they were resumed when Alcibiades came home, and continued until Alaric the Goth destroyed the temple. The peculiarity of this building is that it cuts into the living rock. The interior somewhat resembled a theatre, with eight stone tiers all round it, and an upper story supported on columns. The building itself was square, with a portico in
Plate LI. THE “AGIAS” OF LYSIPPUS