At Rome we see abundance of antiquities scattered about the streets, or collected in museums, or still standing in their original situations; and many of these are very beautiful both in design and workmanship. About Naples too, there is an abundance of ancient fragments, but for the most part, what remain on the ground are mere walls and vaults of coarse stone, too imperfect to exhibit design, and entirely without anything that may be called architecture; one may ramble for hours among ruins without meeting with even a fragment of a column, or a bit of marble. The temple at Pozzuoli forms an exception, but there, though you have many of the parts, you have very little of the effect of the architecture. The same is in some degree true of Pompei, arising from the total deficiency of the superior parts, yet Pompei, as far as it goes, is an admirable school of architecture, exhibiting the manner in which the ancients, at least the Italian Greeks, applied their style of building to private habitations. But there is nothing at Pompei of the higher and more perfect style; and in general we find the execution very indifferent, and in some instances miserably bad, even in their temples. From Naples to Corfu, we meet with, I may almost say, no antiquities. In the Ionian islands we may seek out with difficulty a few remaining portions of a wall, a bit or two of a cornice, and one or two inscriptions. At Patras they shew a single Corinthian capital of indifferent workmanship; and in the road thence to Corinth, there is nothing to be met with but one or two insignificant scraps of wall. At the time therefore of our arrival at Corinth, we had experienced a long abstinence from the principal object of our pursuit, and we were pleased merely with the sight of the fragments of marble which are abundantly scattered over the fields in the neighbourhood of that city, and still more with one or two pieces of Corinthian shafts in the town, and with the six Doric columns still erect, which have formed part of a temple. At Cenchrea we were too late to see anything, and too impatient to get to Athens, to stop to look about us at the Piræus. From that port we could just see the top of the temple of Minerva in the Acropolis, a sight which stimulated us still farther, and we were vexed that the necessity of attending to our luggage would not permit us to proceed rapidly. There are two roads into the town. We took the right-hand, leaving on the left the monument of Philopappus, which has at a distance merely the effect of a tower. The first object that struck our view was the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, of which there remain sixteen lofty columns still erect, and in their places. Except the Pantheon, Rome offers no ruin of equal consequence, of good architecture, for neither the Coliseum, nor any other theatre, nor amphitheatre in Italy can come under that description. In rambling about to find a lodging, I passed by the Monument of Lysicrates, the exquisite beauty of whose proportions and details are sadly spoilt by its present situation, where the wall of the court-yard of the monastery, joins that of the monastery itself, so that one bit of it is seen in the street, one within the court, and another in the inside of the house. You may imagine how this must spoil a monument seven feet in diameter. In our first walk we passed by the Tower of the Winds, now a place for the performance of dancing dervishes, but incumbered with other buildings; and the mouldings and sculptures of which are rather clumsy in design, as well as in the execution. Behind this building there are remains of the aqueduct which supplied the Clepsydra. Stuart has published it without being aware of its purpose, and he has omitted to notice some remarkable peculiarities. Each pier is of one stone, and the pilasters are cut upon it, so as to lean inwards, as if to oppose the lateral thrust of the arch, a precaution quite unnecessary as each arch is likewise formed out of a single stone. Soon afterwards we came to the Portico of the market, which though not to be compared to the best examples here, is yet a very handsome building. We then passed by the building called by Stuart the Stoa, or Portico; but which now seems more generally considered as the Pantheon of Hadrian. The columns have more colour than those of the temple of Jupiter, but they appear to be of the same material; the capitals are poor in design, and the entablature badly composed, but it is an antique, and we are sensible that it must have been a splendid building. All these occur within the distance of a few paces: not much farther is a fragment, supposed to be the Gymnasium, built by Ptolemy, but this is merely a portion of marble wall.
After these comes the Temple of Theseus, and here I must detain you a little; it is an almost perfect building of the best style of Grecian art; supposed to be just prior to the administration of Pericles. You have no conception of what a beautiful thing it is. It stands quite detached, on a little point of land running out from the hill of the Areopagus. The situation is admirable, better than that of the temple of Jupiter Olympus; the building is more perfect, the material as good, or indeed better; for this is of pure white marble, and the other has veins and defective blocks. The workmanship appears to have been superior, but the joints have been loosened, and some of the stones dislocated, probably by the shock of an earthquake: it falls far short in magnitude, but to make amends it is connected with the wonderful tale of Athenian glory; while what remains at least of the other, is the work of some later period. I have quite made up my mind, that the best situation for almost any sort of building is an advancing point of land; not an insulated summit, let that summit be high or low, sheltered or unsheltered, and never in a hollow. Prior park near Bath, though standing very high, is in a hollow, and loses half the praise its architecture would obtain, if it were better placed. Half way down, on the point forming one side of the little valley in which it stands, it would be better sheltered, have a more pleasing variety of view, be more accessible, and form incomparably a better object. The most admired buildings generally occupy situations of this sort, and they sometimes get a degree of credit for their architecture which should in fact be given to their position. But the architecture of the temple of Theseus is as beautiful as the site. The point it stands on is so little elevated, that a person might leave Athens without perceiving it to be placed on any hill at all, yet nobody can fail to observe that it is a conspicuous object, and looks well in every point of view.
The cell of a Greek temple, is you know a simple, oblong building. In the earlier periods it was probably nearly destitute of ornament, and except for the cornice, and for the smallness of the dimensions, much like a barn. Afterwards a porch was added, supported by columns, and the entablature began to receive some embellishment. Even this disposition, when the front came into view, was highly beautiful, and more so when an additional range of columns was added to the portico. Afterwards columns were added at the back also, by which means the variety and contrast produced by them, would catch the attention from every point of view. The next step was to continue the columns all round, and this is the arrangement at the temple of Theseus.
The simple cell had, I believe, no peculiar appellation, and yet from the great multitude of temples existing in ancient Greece, many of which seem to have been very small, it is probable they were not uncommon. Temples of the second sort were said to be in antis, because in them the flank walls were prolonged beyond the front, so as to form the sides of the porch, and these prolongations were terminated in pilasters having three faces: which pilasters were called antæ. The third arrangement was called prostyle; the fourth amphiprostyle; the fifth peripteral: besides these were also the dipteral temples, having two rows of columns round the cell, (such was the temple of Jupiter Olympus in this place) and pseudodipteral, which differed from the dipteral by the want of the inner range of columns, and from the peripteral by having a much larger space between the cell and the surrounding colonnade. In all these, the same general form was preserved, a simple oblong; and you see that in all of them, I can account for the admiration bestowed upon them by a recurrence to my favourite maxim of simplicity of form, and richness of detail. This richness of detail has its limits, and the work may be overloaded, even when the ornaments do not (as they frequently do in Italian architecture,) interrupt, or obscure the simplicity of the design: but the liberty allowed is very wide. The simple cell must always have been deficient in that respect, for though the walls and cornices might be richly ornamented, yet these details could not have produced sufficient effect on the whole composition; for that purpose it is necessary that the building should be divided into principal masses, whose position with respect to each other must produce some degree of variety and intricacy. The temple in antis must also in some degree be deficient in richness, and I know no temple of this sort which has been much admired; but the prostyle, and still more the amphiprostyle, if well proportioned, will always be admitted into the rank of beautiful buildings. From almost every point of view you see at least one column gracefully detaching itself from the mass of the building, and the nakedness of the side walls contrasts with the bright lights and shadows of the ends, and claims our admiration even when compared with the higher finish of the peripteral temple. The eye however will not be satisfied with some intricacy in the disposition of the general masses; it will require a similar gratification when it comes to examine the details; and we find this accomplished by fluting the columns, moulding the capitals, dividing the frieze at least by triglyphs, and frequently placing sculpture in the intervals between them; adorning the pediments with sculpture, and placing antefixæ, or ornamental convex tiles along the eaves.
The ancients used two sorts of tiles in covering each building; the first were flat, but turned up at the edges, they were trays with the ends cut off, made a little smaller at one end than at the other, that they might lap one into the other; but if such tiles were simply laid side by side, the water would run in between them, and to prevent this, other semicircular, or semipolygonal, i. e. convex tiles, were placed over the joint. These tiles ran in ribs, from the ridge of the roof down to the eaves, and the last of them at the eaves, had an elevated and ornamented end; and the range of these ornamented ends, which in the celebrated edifices of Athens, were of white marble, running above the cornice, greatly enhanced the appearance of splendour, and must have had considerable influence even on the distant appearance of the building. In temples of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, the richness of decoration was carried still farther, though there was by no means the difference between those, and a highly finished Doric temple, which might at first sight be imagined. However between a Doric prostyle temple, and a dipteral temple of the Corinthian order, the distance is immense, yet each has peculiar beauties, and he who prefers the one, has no right to reproach with want of taste, him who approves the other.
To return to the temple of Theseus; all the ornaments of the roof are gone; the sculptures of the pediment have disappeared. Those of the frieze exist only in the front, and on the four adjacent metopes in each side. The two columns between the antæ of the pronaos (or porch) have been removed to make room for the apsis, or semicircular terminating recess of the Greek church; and the corresponding ones of the posticum have been very much damaged. An arch of rough stones occupies the place of the original roof of the cell. Many of the marble beams and slabs which formed the ceiling of the peristyle still remain, the rest is open. In general effect, the building thus loses something by want of shade, and more by the loss of its roof ornaments; yet enough remains to exhibit the great beauty of the ancient Greek temple.
I now come to another part of the detail, in which our knowledge of the practice of the Greeks is very imperfect, and of which the good sense or good taste may be considered very doubtful; there have been painted or gilt ornaments, or probably both, within the peristyle of the temple of Theseus, and the same thing occurs in that of Minerva; we do not see in the present edifice any traces of external painting,[[26]] but some marks of it may be traced on the Parthenon, and in one or two other instances, and particularly in the temple of Jupiter, in the island of Egina, and it is therefore conjectured that a similar finish was given to those of Athens. Perhaps this painting was not in any of these cases coeval with the building, for Pliny, I think, mentions the painted soffites as an invention of the age of Alexander. That at Egina seems to have been of the gayest hues. The subject of the sculpture in the pediment of that temple was a combat, with a statue of Minerva standing armed in the middle. Some of the figures are clothed, (these fight with bows and arrows) others who have swords and shields are naked. On the flesh no marks of paint have been discovered, but they are found in the dress and on the shields. That of Minerva was blue with a red border, (I write from memory, and perhaps may have reversed the colours) but in general there is only sufficient mark remaining to determine that something has been laid on, but not enough to distinguish precisely what was the colour, or whether the effect has not been produced by a mordaunt to fix the gilding. You will observe that this painting was not to imitate nature; for deception, if attainable, would be absurd; but to give relief and effect to the figures, and different parts of the building. Would this contribute to the general richness of effect? Supposing it done as well as possible, would it please a correct taste? My prejudices are strongly against it, yet I should extremely like to see a temple so decorated with all its colours perfect. Gilding, if applied with judgment, certainly enhances the beauty of a building (and my prejudices were once strongly against that also), and there seems no reason à priori, why colours should not have a similar effect. Within the peristyle we may more readily admit them. It would be like colours and gilding on the inside of a room, a practice which has obtained everywhere, and in all ages. It may seem rather extravagant to employ white marble to receive the colours, but if the colour be better than white, white marble is a very good substance to paint upon, and perhaps no other would have retained the traces so long. In the temple of Theseus the architrave and frieze are continued uninterruptedly on the inside of the columns; from these, marble beams or joists, were laid, reaching to the wall of the cell, and between these, marble slabs of considerable thickness, each slab being perforated by square holes, and a small square of marble applied to close each perforation, making them into coffers. At the top of the frieze, and at the corresponding height of the wall of the cell, was a flat band, on which was painted a Greek fret, and some mouldings ornamented with leaves; one of the displaced beams has flowers in this part; I believe it is one which has belonged to the ceiling of the pronaos, and not to that of the peristyle; but all these, you well understand, are regular architectural leaves and flowers, not copies of natural ones. The mouldings in the coffers are painted with eggs and leaves, and in the soffite of each coffer was a star, which appears to have been of gold on a blue ground. There was no carving to any of the mouldings. This description would nearly apply to all the temples of the Grecian Doric order. I do not know how the colouring has been managed in the other orders.
In England, we colour the walls and leave the ceilings white; the Greeks on the contrary seem to have coloured the ceiling and left the walls white; and still in their houses, we may see whitewashed plaster walls, and painted, wooden ceilings. Whether painted or carved, there is a marked difference between the ornamental style of the Greeks and Romans. The former made their ornaments much smaller in proportion to the building than the latter, and there is a degree of simplicity and elegance of design, and a neatness and delicacy of execution in Greek buildings, which you would seek for in vain in Italy; while on the other hand, in the Roman edifices, there is a full and rich magnificence, which is not to be found in those of Greece. The beauty of both is, that the same feeling is observed throughout, and that in each building, all the parts are in perfect harmony. While in modern structures it frequently happens that one beauty is copied from one ancient building, and another from another, and their union only produces disgust. This difference of character was preserved, though perhaps in a less degree, even to the latest times of Grecian art; and at Rome, there are one or two buildings which exhibit indications of Greek taste, and have been supposed on that account to be the production of Greek artists.
The capitals of the temple of Theseus (if I may venture to find any fault in so perfect a design) are rather flat: the overhanging of the architrave, a common feature in this order, does not displease, but the advance of the fillet beyond the triglyphs is offensive.
It may give you some idea of the state of the useful arts in Athens to know, that we found it difficult to procure a ladder to ascend the Temple of Theseus, although, by the help of the apsis of the church, one of about ten feet long, for which we were indebted to M. Fauvel, answered our purpose. We found a fragment of a marble tile on the top, but it is not certain that the whole covering was of marble. There are rows of cramp holes in pairs, on the top of the cornice, near the edge, having probably supported the ornamental tiles, or antefixæ; and along the pediment are similar holes, disposed singly at equal distances, and at the top some larger and deeper holes for fixing the acroterium. At the bottom of the slope of the pediment there are several small holes, which perhaps fixed the ornament in that part, and we find vestiges of this kind, of the insertion of statues in the eastern tympanum. Here was the original front, for the doorway marked by Stuart at the western end, did not belong to the temple, but to the church which succeeded it. The spaces between the internal columns at the west end were filled up with marble slabs, rising as high as the necking of the capitals, but to what use the space so inclosed was applied, or what entrance was left to it, I cannot tell.