LETTER XLVIII.
OTHER ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS.
Athens, March, 1818.
It is fortunate for us that we have more remains of the two cities where architecture was carried to the greatest perfection, than of any other. The immensity of Rome, and the vast multitude of public buildings which adorned it, might lead one to expect that we should meet there with more remains than elsewhere, but Athens never was a very large city, nor do the public buildings in it appear to have been constructed on a larger scale than in many others. In each of these cities we probably see the remains of some of the finest examples. Judging from the fragments found at Rome, we may pronounce that there were many other buildings of great beauty, but none which we could wish to exchange for the temple of Mars Ultor, of Jupiter Stator, of Jupiter Tonans, of Antoninus and Faustina, or for the portico of the Pantheon. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was indeed larger than any of these, but we may doubt if its architecture were better, or even so good. Here there are fewer objects to distract the attention, and we may be assured that the Parthenon, the Erectheum, the Propylæa, and the temple of Theseus, were the principal objects of beauty in the time of Athenian splendour, and if there were others which rivalled, there were none which pretended to surpass them. That we have remains of the best edifices of Hadrian and Herodes Atticus, is not quite so certain, but we know from several examples that architecture had fallen, at that period, from the dignity and purity which it possessed in the time of Pericles.
I have, on a former occasion, attempted to explain what were the peculiarities of situation which gave effect to the Roman buildings. They occupied in many instances points of land advancing into the general line of the valley of the Tiber. The spectator was in the centre, the objects were round him. In Athens it was exactly the reverse; the objects were grouped together on a hill in the centre, which displayed its magnificence on every side. At Rome, the beholder was dazzled by the multiplicity of objects. At Athens he was impressed by their simplicity and unity, for, from every point of view, the public edifices which crowded the summit, and were disposed on the slopes of the Acropolis, would combine to form a single whole. In both nature and art seemed to have united to produce an harmonious effect, and even in the style of architecture, the richness and grandeur of the Roman, and the grace and elegance of the Athenian, seem alike suited to the disposition of the buildings, and the stations they occupied. It is remarkable, that both these cities should have been so admirably placed. Paris hardly offers a single marked situation; Naples would have been better, had some of its principal edifices occupied the Chiatamone; Milan is on a flat; Florence merely in a fine valley. London would be preferable to any of these for the display of architecture, but we have taken no advantage of the steep bank rising from the Thames, which, though rather too low, would nevertheless afford admirable situations for public buildings. The present circumstances of Athens and Rome are no less strikingly opposed to each other than the situation and style of architecture. Rome is adorned, and frequently incumbered with modern magnificence; the Athenian ruins are either insulated or surrounded by mere huts. At Rome the buildings are numerous, and very much decayed; at Athens they are few, and much more perfect. Indeed, the mere lapse of time seems to have had very little effect on those of the latter city. Earthquakes have shaken, explosions have shattered, and avarice has despoiled them, but a great deal of what remains, remains absolutely perfect, except in the more delicate and exposed sculpture, and even of the sculpture a considerable portion is as fresh as if it were only just finished. The modern manners of Greece and Italy have introduced a style of domestic architecture in the two cities completely different. In one country each family inhabits a story, or perhaps only a suite of apartments, and many families live consequently under the same roof. In the other, such a system would be profanation: each family occupies its own little house, shut out from the rest of the world by being placed in a court, and instead of six or seven stories, as in Italy, we here rarely find more than two. Nature seems to delight in adding to these contrasts. At Rome the atmosphere is remarkably quiet; at Athens the winds are frequent and impetuous. At Rome, on the contrary, the recurrence of thunder-storms is frequent, and they are extremely violent; at Athens, thunder is rare: but this remark is so very wide of my subject, that it reminds me to return to it.
You will think I have said enough of the Acropolis, but I must still take you round the outside of the walls, and we will notice a few adjoining antiquities as we proceed. There is a sitting statue of early Greek workmanship on the ascent to the Acropolis, and a beautiful, but much injured capital of a peculiar style near the entrance; there is also in the way up a fountain of brackish water, which is said to run only in summer. A well within the Acropolis, the water of which is not good, is perhaps connected with this. Beginning below the Propylæa, we observe between that edifice and the lower modern battery, some ancient piers built up in the present walls, which seem to announce the most ancient access to the Acropolis, the materials and style of masonry are like that which I have mentioned as existing under the north-west angle of the Propylæa, and as being in all likelihood, prior to the age of Pericles. Taking our course along the northern side of the hill, we meet with the grotto of Pan; a hollow in the rock of no great extent, with numerous square and circular recesses cut apparently for the reception of votive tablets. At a little distance there is a vault descending from the Acropolis, and some steps passing over part of it; these steps have been thought to belong to the entrance of the original Acropolis, but this is at best very doubtful, and I have no theory as to their probable object or date. Proceeding farther, the rock is extremely uneven, both in height and direction, and there are many hollows in it, but of no considerable depth. Some of them appear to have had votive tablets, and perhaps architectural ornaments. In the wall above, we see parts of an enormous entablature; it is twice interrupted, but recurs again at the same level, as if it were placed by design, and not accidentally. The architrave, triglyphs, and cornice, are of limestone; but the metopes are slabs of marble. Two theories have been made for this; one is supported by M. Fauvel, who thinks it a portion of the regular finish of the work. If so its size was proportioned, not to the mere height of the wall, for in some places the space below this crowning is hardly more than the height of the entablature itself, but to that of the rock and wall together. The other theory takes into consideration what we are told of the mode of erecting these walls after the Persian invasion, when to avoid the effects of Lacedæmonian jealousy, they were reconstructed in the greatest haste, and of any materials which first came to hand, however previously employed. These fragments, therefore, may either have belonged to the old temple of Minerva, or to that of Jupiter Olympus, which was also a large edifice of the Doric order. I should incline to Fauvel’s opinion, were it not that several marble frusta of columns, a little farther on, which seem to correspond in size with this entablature, give some additional weight to the latter theory. These frusta are not finished; the circular shape is determined, and a smoothed ring on the edge of each frustum marks the intended size of the column, but the rest of the surface is rough, and the projections left as means to lift them into their places still remain. Farther on there are vestiges of very ancient walls below the foot of the rock, which may be traced at intervals more than half round the Acropolis; at the east end is a large cavern, which penetrates the rock to a considerable extent: it seems to be formed by the destruction of a loose breccia, which in some parts becomes a mere gravel. Turning round to the south side we meet with several ancient foundations composed of large blocks of Magnesian limestone. Just above the choragic monument of Thrasyllus, there are two detached columns, with triangular capitals, ornamented with leaves and volutes, but of little beauty; these are also testimonials of the same sort with that monument, and have supported tripods, as is shewn by the cramp-holes remaining at the top. In one of them a statue has probably at some period taken the place of the tripod, and the square pedestal placed on the abacus to receive it still remains. Below this monument is a large hollow, which is supposed to have contained the theatre of Bacchus, for it is now generally acknowledged, that what Stuart has published under that name, is the theatre of Herodes Atticus. The range of arches extending from the hollow to the latter building seems a very mixed production, with no very clear intimations of genuine antiquity. The Odeum, or theatre of Herodes, is partly of brick, and partly of Magnesian limestone.
I shall not attempt to follow the order of place in the few remaining remarks I have to make on Athenian antiquities.
I mentioned the Temple of Jupiter Olympus on our arrival, but so important an edifice must not be passed over with so slight a notice. A building under this name was begun by Pisistratus, or perhaps still earlier. This we may suppose to have been destroyed by the Persians. Pericles seems to have done nothing towards its completion or re-erection; perhaps Jupiter, in his time, was not a popular deity. Livy mentions it as built by Antiochus, and as the only temple worthy the majesty of the god; but the passage is defective. Vitruvius also says that it was built by Antiochus, and that Cossutius, a Roman, was the architect. According to Pliny, Sylla carried away its columns to Rome, but in the immense multitude of fragments remaining in that city, there is not a single example of a column, or a portion of a column, of large diameter, of Pentelic marble. Several Asiatic sovereigns are said to have paid their court to Augustus by contributing to its restoration (an odd way of gaining favour), and to this epoch I would attribute all the existing columns, for it contains several particulars which render it probable that it was prior to Hadrian’s time. To judge of the date of a building, either by its design or execution, it is necessary to compare many different works, for every edifice will have something peculiar to itself, and without several examples it is impossible to distinguish these individual peculiarities from those which are characteristic of the age; and we have few examples of architecture in Greece, whose date we can determine, between the time of Alexander and that of Hadrian. My principal guide in this instance is in the foliage of the capitals. I have already mentioned to you the difference of forms adopted by the artists of Greece and Rome in this respect, and that the latter usually made the lower divisions of the leaves to lap over the other, (fig. 4) while the former only made them touch; but there also appears to have been a pretty regular progress among the Greeks themselves in the arrangement of these divisions. In the earlier examples, the upper point of the lower division just touches the lowest point of the division above it, (fig. 1). This is the case in the monument of Lysicrates, (I am sorry to say that Stuart is not good authority in this respect, he has nowhere sufficiently attended to the character of the foliage), and such also is the case in this temple of Jupiter Olympus. Afterwards the upper point of the lower division touched not the point, but the side of the division above it: (fig. 2) of this we have only fragments. In the latest specimens two points of the lower divisions touch, or nearly touch, the sides of the upper: (fig. 3) of this the fragments are very numerous, and often executed in a very dry and tasteless manner. What I suppose Clarke to mean by his early Corinthian capital, is often thus formed, and is the work of the lower empire. In the arch of Hadrian this practice is begun, but not fully established, and the leaves are gracefully drawn. Now if you ask me why I refer these columns to the time of Augustus rather than that of Antiochus, to which these observations seem to apply at least equally well, I must refer you to the authority of Pliny, and the spoliation of Sylla; for I have no internal evidence.
Fig 1.
