153. Section of the Parthenon. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in
154. Part Section, part Elevation, of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
This arrangement will be understood from the section of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. [153]), restored in accordance with the above explanation, which agrees perfectly with all that remains on the spot, as well as with all the accounts we have of that celebrated temple. The same system applies even more easily to the great hexastyle at Pæstum and to the beautiful little Temple of Apollo at Bassæ, in Phigaleia (Woodcut No. [149]), and in fact to all regular Greek temples. Indeed, it seems impossible to account for the peculiarities of that temple except on some such theory as this. Any one who studies the plan (Woodcut No. [149]) will see at once what pains were taken to bring the internal columns exactly into the spaces between those of the external peristyle. The effect inside is clumsy, and never would have been attempted were it not that practically their position was seen from the outside, and this could hardly have been so on any other hypothesis than that now proposed. An equally important point in the examination of this theory is that it applies equally to the exceptional ones. The side aisles, for instance, of the great temple at Agrigentum were, as before mentioned, lighted by side windows; the central one could only be lighted from the roof, and it is easy to see how this could be effected by introducing openings between the telamones, as shown in Woodcut No. [154].
In the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius (Woodcut No. [196]), as described by Vitruvius,[[144]] the nave had two storeys of columns all round, and the middle was open to the sky. It is suggested, however, by Dr. Dorpfield that the temple in Vitruvius’s time was incomplete, and that subsequently when Hadrian erected the great chryselephantine statue in it the nave may have lost its hypæthral source of light. (In that case its light may have been introduced through the court or hypæthron in front of the cell, such as is shown on the plan in Woodcut No. [196].)
The Ionic temples of Asia are all too much ruined to enable us to say exactly in what manner, and to what extent, this mode of lighting was applied to them, though there seems no doubt that the method there adopted was very similar in all its main features.
155. Plan of Erechtheium. (From Stuart.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
156. Elevation of West End of Erechtheium. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.