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

by James Fergusson

In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell; beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each flank.

The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example; still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these temples.

Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. [152] and [154]), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.

A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof between two ranges of column.

152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose, that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this, and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather. It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that without protection of some sort this would very soon have been obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only practically, but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose. The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once; while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface. The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most surpassingly beautiful.

Mode of Lighting Temples.

The arrangement of the interior of Grecian temples necessarily depended on the mode in which they were lighted. No one will, I believe, now contend, as was once done, that it was by lamplight alone that the beauty of their interiors could be seen; and as light certainly was not introduced through the side walls, nor could be in sufficient quantities through the doorways, it is only from the roof that it could be admitted. At the same time it could not have been by a large horizontal opening in the roof, as has been supposed, as that would have admitted the rain and snow as well as the light; and the only alternative seems to be one I suggested some years ago—of a clerestory,[^[142]] similar internally to that found in all the great Egyptian temples,[^[143]] but externally requiring such a change of arrangement as was necessary to adapt it to a sloping instead of a flat roof. This could have been effected by countersinking it into the roof, so as to make it in fact 3 ridges in those parts where the light was admitted, though the regular slope of the roof was retained between these openings, so that neither the ridge nor the continuity of the lines of the roof was interfered with. This would effect all that was required, and in the most beautiful manner; it moreover agrees with all the remains of Greek temples that now exist, as well as with all the descriptions that have been handed down to us from antiquity.