These two remaining statues have lost their heads, and consequently all that entitled them to their appellation, and the remaining fragment of cornice has fallen from its first position, and rests upon the figures. The metopes of this front are almost obliterated, but the sculpture of the inner frieze is exquisite, perhaps the finest piece of the whole circuit. Sometimes when this is lighted by the declining sun, the effect is inconceivably beautiful; but this effect never could have had place in the perfect state of the building, because it is only owing to the want of ceiling and roof in the peristyle, that it is ever illuminated by the direct light of the sky.
You would imagine from the way in which Wilkins endeavours to correct an error which Wheeler never made, that the columns of this temple were in five pieces, but this is not true; the number of drums or frusta is eleven or twelve, but the junction in those which have suffered no violence is so beautifully fine, that it is frequently impossible to trace it, even on the smooth surface of white marble.
The inner range of columns is more shattered than the outer, and here we begin to be sensible of the immediate effects of the explosion occasioned by the bombs of the Venetians in 1687. The space between the internal columns, forming the pronaos, appears to have been filled up with a metal grating resting on a sill of marble. The holes for fastening it still remain, and the situation of the plinth, on which this grating rested, is indicated by the parts cut away to receive it at the foot of the columns. The doorway is 16 feet 8 inches wide in the original work, but it has been contracted by blocks of marble, at some more recent period; probably when the edifice was converted into a Greek church, and this has misled Stuart. Besides the evidence of this being a posterior contraction, arising from the inferior nature of the work, and its total want of connexion with the wall of the cell, we may observe also that some of the stones used are covered with inscriptions. No ornamental architrave remains to the door, but there are vestiges whence we may conclude that this part was of metal, as in the Propylæa.
When you have once entered the building you see the manner in which it has suffered. The powder must have been near the middle; and on each side, both the wall of the cell, and the columns of the peristyle have been thrown down. At the eastern end, the walls and the inner range of columns are destroyed. Perhaps towards the west, the walls still existed between the ancient temple and the opisthodomus, and protected in some degree the western end; but that wall is now entirely destroyed, and the surface of the wall of the cell everywhere shattered, exposing a raw white fracture.
But we are not yet fairly within the temple; we must first consider the Opisthodomus. It is paved with slabs of white marble 8 inches thick, 5 feet 8 inches long, and 3 feet 11 inches wide, all bedded in rough masonry, or on the native rock. There are four square blocks of a larger size, being 5 feet 10 inches square, and 14 inches thick; placed in corresponding situations, so as to divide the area of the room into nine equal parts, and appearing to have received the columns which supported the roof. Stuart has imagined six such columns, but without sufficient reason.
We may distinguish on the pavement marks of the openings of the doors, consisting of grooves forming portions of circles, which have probably received plates of metal. The centre from which these segments are described, is, as has been already mentioned, clear of the thickness of the walls. It is doubtful if there were originally any opening between this chamber and the cell of the temple. If such existed, it was probably a small side door, but a large central doorway doubtless existed here while the building was occupied as a church. Stuart has remarked a sinking round the larger space which formed the hypæthral cell of the temple, at the distance of 15 feet from the walls; but he has not noticed some peculiarities in the pavement, which are of considerable importance in understanding the construction and arrangement of the building. There is first a pavement of marble slabs, 8 inches thick, as in the opisthodomus, 10 feet 3 inches and a half wide at the end, and not quite so much at the side: next to this is a course 4 feet wide, and 14 inches thick, doubtless intended to receive the columns of the internal peristyle. At one angle of the parallelogram, formed by this series of slabs, there are faint traces of the position of a column about 3 feet 9 inches in diameter, and as these blocks are regularly spaced, we may ascertain that the distance from centre to centre of the columns was about 11 feet 6 inches, and consequently the space between them was 7 feet 9 inches, while in the other intervals, the space from centre to centre was 12 feet 11 inches, and the clear intercolumniation about 9 feet 2 inches. The ancients always placed the internal columns, and those of their courts, proportionally farther apart than the external ones. At Pæstum, where the outer columns are only one and a tenth diameter apart, the inner are nearly one and two fifths; at Egina, those of the external peristyle are about one diameter and two thirds asunder, those of the internal, two and one third. In the Propylæa, the spaces between the external columns seem to be about one diameter and a half, if we exclude the large middle entrance, the internal about two and a half. In the latter case, the internal columns were Ionic, and it is very possible that this was also the case in the Parthenon, but we have not the slightest fragment remaining; a circumstance which seems to me very remarkable. Was no use made of them in the church? and if so, why were they rejected?
The lines of the small columns traced by Stuart, are sufficiently evident, but they were probably parts of the church, not of the temple; for besides that their diminutive size renders them unsuitable for the internal structure of such a building, and that their remaining fragments are of very indifferent workmanship, their situation does not correspond with the division of the marble slabs, which in an edifice so regularly and systematically constructed, is alone a sufficient reason for rejecting them. It may seem remarkable that the original columns should not have left on the pavement more distinct traces of their existence; but while the Greeks united with wooden blocks, and sometimes by other means, the different portions of the column, they placed the lowest part, without preparation, on the smooth pavement. In some instances, in the temple of Theseus, less than half the column remains, and not the slightest indication is visible on the pavement to shew that the other half ever existed. Within the sinking of the pavement already mentioned, we find again the eight-inch marble paving, but in one part slabs of limestone occupy its place. These are supposed to have supported the statue of the goddess. Mr. B. very justly observed, that where every thing is thus of white marble, a statue of that material would have wanted its just consequence. It was necessary to employ a more expensive substance to give it sufficient relief in the imagination.
A considerable portion of the paving remains in its place, but some has been removed, and in the opisthodomus a large slab of marble moulded on the edge, appeared underneath the pavement, which must have been buried at the time of the erection of the temple. Before leaving the inside, I must conduct you up a staircase, which the Turks have made in a little tower at the south-west angle of the building. We may by its means observe many particulars, which are not so easily discernible from below. The examination of the Athenian edifices leads to the conclusion, that the white Pentelic marble was obtainable in slabs of considerable length and breadth, but that the thickness was more limited. In the walls of the cell of the Parthenon, the courses are of 1 foot 8 inches and two thirds. In the Erectheum and the Propylæa, they are somewhat less. When a greater width is required, either to form a plinth course, or to cover the opening of a doorway, the slab is uniformly set on edge.
In the frusta of the columns, the stones are thicker; one in the Parthenon being 3 feet 7.8 inches in thickness; but probably that part of the quarry which would furnish blocks of such a thickness, did not afford them of considerable length. The architrave of the Parthenon is 5 feet 9 inches wide, and is got out in three thicknesses, probably on account of the difficulty of procuring pieces 14 feet long, and 2 feet 10 inches and a half thick, which would have been required, had it been constructed, as is more usually the case, in two blocks. In the frieze, there was not the same necessity that the work should be perfectly solid, and accordingly only two beds were used, leaving a vacancy of about 10 inches in the middle. Thus this peculiarity which Clarke discovered to be owing to the dishonesty of the workmen, and Wilkins considers a proof of great science and foresight, may with greater probability be attributed to the nature of the quarry.
The ceiling of the pronaos and posticum was formed by marble joists supporting slabs of the same material, which contained the lacunariæ; but in the lateral peristyle, these slabs were laid from the wall to the external epistylium, without the intervention of joists.