Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

The Banks of the Kladeus

When we came to the real Olympia the prospect was truly disenchanting. However interesting excavations may be, they are always exceedingly ugly. Instead of grass and flowers, and pure water, we found the classic spot defaced with great mounds of earth, and trodden bare of grass. We found the Kladeus flowing a turbid drain into the larger river. We found hundreds of workmen, and wheel-barrows, and planks, and trenches, instead of solitude and the song of birds. Thus it was that we found the famous temple of Zeus.

This temple was in many respects one of the most celebrated in Greece, especially on account of the great image of Zeus, which Phidias himself wrought for it in gold and ivory, and of which Pausanias has [pg 304]left us a very wonderful description (V. II, sqq.). It was carried away to Constantinople, and of course its precious material precluded all chance of its surviving through centuries of ignorance and bigotry. The temple itself, to judge from its appearance, was somewhat older than the days of Phidias, for it is of that thickset and massive type which we only find in the earlier Doric temples, and which rather reminds us of Pæstum than of Athenian remains. It was built by a local architect, Libon, and of a very coarse limestone from the neighborhood, which was covered with stucco, and painted chiefly white, to judge from the fragments which remain. But it seems as if the Eleans had done all they could to add splendor to the building, whenever their funds permitted. The tiles of the roof were not of burnt clay, but of Pentelican marble, the well-known and beautiful invention of the Naxian Byzes. Moreover, Phidias and a number of his fellow-workers or subordinates at Athens, as well as other artists, had been invited to Olympia, to adorn the temple, and to them we owe the pediments, probably also the metopes, and many of the statues, with which all the sacred enclosure around the edifice was literally thronged. Subsequent generations added to this splendor: a gilded figure of Victory, with a gold shield, was set upon the apex of the gable; gilded pitchers at the extremities; gilded shields were fastened all along the architraves by Mummius, [pg 305]from the spoils of Corinth, and the great statue of Zeus within still remained, the wonder and the awe of the ancient world.

But with the fall of paganism and the formal extinction of the Olympic games (394 A. D.) the glories of the temple fell into decay. The great statue in the shrine was carried away to Byzantium; many of the votive bronzes and marbles which stood about the sacred grove were transported to Italy; and at last a terrible earthquake, apparently in the fifth century, levelled the whole temple almost with the ground. The action of this extraordinary earthquake is still plainly to be traced in the now uncovered ruins. It upheaved the temple from the centre, throwing the pillars of all the four sides outward, where most of them lie with their drums separated, but still complete in all parts, and only requiring mechanical power to set them up again. Some preliminary shakes had caused pieces of the pediment sculptures to fall out of their place, for they were found at the foot of the temple steps; but the main shock threw the remainder to a great distance, and I saw the work of Alkamenes being unearthed more than twenty-five yards from its proper site.

In spite of this convulsion, the floor of the temple, with its marble work, and its still more beautiful mosaic, is still there, and it seemed doubtful to the Germans whether there is even a crack now to be found in it. About the ruins there gathered some [pg 306]little population, for many fragments were found built into walls of poor and late construction; but this work of destruction was fortunately arrested by a sudden overflow of the Alpheus, caused by the bursting of one of the mountain lakes about Pheneus. The river then covered all the little plain of Olympia with a deep layer of fine sand and of mud. A thicket of arbutus and mastich sprang from this fertile soil, and so covered all traces of antiquity, that when Chandler visited the place 100 years ago, nothing but a part of the cella wall was over ground, and this was since removed by neighboring builders. But the site being certain, it only required the enterprise of modern research to lay bare the old level so fortunately hidden by the interposition of nature. The traveller who now visits Olympia can see the whole plan and contour of the great temple, with all its prostrate pillars lying around it. He can stand on the very spot where once was placed the unrivalled image—the masterpiece of Phidias’s art. He can see the old mosaic in colored pebbles, with its exquisite design, which later taste—probably Roman—thought well to cover with a marble pavement. But far above all, he can find in adjoining sheds[117] not only the remains of the famous Niké of [pg 307]Pæonius, which stood on a pedestal close to the east front, but the greater part of the splendid pediment sculptures, which will henceforth rank among the most important relics of Greek art. These noble compositions have been restored with tolerable completeness, and now stand next to the pediments of the Parthenon in conception and in general design.

Statue of Niké, by Paeonius

For even if the restoration were never accomplished, there is enough in the fragments of the figures already recovered to show the genius of both sculptors, but particularly of Alkamenes, the author of the western pediment. This perfectly agrees with the note of Pausanias, who adds, in mentioning this very work, that Alkamenes was considered in his day an artist second only to Phidias.

It was objected to me by learned men on the spot, that the eastern pediment, being the proper front of the temple, must have been the more important, and that Pæonius, as we know from an inscription, boasts that he obtained the executing of it by competition, thus proving that he was, at least in this case, preferred to his rivals. But the decided superiority of Alkamenes’s design leads me to suppose that the boast of Pæonius only applies to the eastern pediment, and that probably the western had been already assigned to Alkamenes. Nor do I agree with the view that the eastern pediment must have been [pg 308]artistically the most important. In several Greek temples—e. g., the Parthenon, the temple at Bassæ, and in this—the great majority of visitors must have approached it from the rear, which should accordingly have been quite the prominent side for artistic decoration. Let me add that far more action was permitted in the groups on this side, while over the entrance the figures were staid and in repose, as if to harmonize with the awe and silence of the entering worshippers. Be these things as they may, the work of Alkamenes is certainly superior to that which remains to us of Pæonius in the eastern pediment, and in his figure of winged Victory, which was, I think, greatly overpraised by the critics who saw it soon after its discovery.[118]