A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different, this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.

The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera, which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required renewal.[^[132]] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at Bassæ; a third hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many buildings dating from the Roman occupation.

To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its execution belongs to a later date.

The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.[^[133]]

Doric Temples in Sicily.

Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority, however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself, prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a secondary illustration.

At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example, differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of the age. Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to. Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480, and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was destroyed by the Carthaginians.

At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect state.

Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater part of its internal columnar arrangement.

The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars, supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form, is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.