In this passage are several disputed readings, which I have marked in the notes. I have accepted Mr. Oldfield’s version, which is that of the earlier edition of Sillig’s Pliny. I will briefly sum up Pliny’s evidence as to the form and dimensions of the building. His statement as to the circumstances of its erection needs no summing; it is clear, and no doubt correct.
1. The frontage towards north and south was 63 feet: the frontage (in a stricter sense the fronts) towards east and west was shorter. But the circuit was 411 feet. This latter dimension seems inconsistent with the former. How could a building which was 411 feet in circuit have no side longer than 63 feet? Impressed by this difficulty, some writers supposed the true dimensions to be 163 feet (adding to the text centenos) for the frontage to north and south. Colonel Leake, followed by Newton and Pullan, regarded the dimension of 63 feet as really the length of the cella, not of any frontage. This, however, is doing clear violence to the text of Pliny. But by a most ingenious adaptation, Mr. Oldfield has succeeded in reconciling the numbers of Pliny as they stand. He has, in fact, substituted for a square or oblong groundplan of the building �, a cruciform plan
; and so makes it possible for any given front to be less than a fourth of the circuit of the building. Here Mr. Oldfield has certainly won a great advantage over rival constructions: he has kept to the text of Pliny, and at the same time greatly improved the form of the building. It is true that it would not be easy to find other Greek buildings of cruciform plan, but the Erechtheium at Athens gives us a hint that such a plan, produced by the intersection of two ordinary temples, would not be impossible. And the Mausoleum was a building in which originality of design was to be expected.
2. The number of columns of the pteron was thirty-six. The pteron is the temple-like building erected on the base, a construction of which, in any possible view, columns were the principal feature. Now the writers who supposed the pteron to be a huge square edifice were compelled to place the columns all round the edge of it: and to fill up the midst with a vast and solid construction of hewn stone ([Fig. 78]). But Mr. Oldfield is enabled, by greatly reducing the superficial area covered by the pteron, to make the columns by far its most conspicuous feature. Within them there is room only for a small building; or the space may even be filled by a few solid piers, which is the plan he adopts. He can thus far more nearly conform to the ‘aere pendentia Mausolea’ of Martial.
3. The total height was 140 feet[311] from the ground to the top of the chariot. Let us consider how this height was made up. Thirty-seven and a half feet (25 cubits) was occupied by the pteron. Then there was a pyramid of twenty-four steps over the pteron, supporting a chariot, and there was under the pteron another pyramid equal in height to the upper one. Now we have considerable remains of the steps of the upper pyramid, from careful measurement of which Mr. Pullan has ascertained that each step was 12¼ inches in height. Thus the total height of the upper pyramid was 24½ feet. The lower pyramid was of the same height. The chariot would not occupy less than twelve feet. We have thus accounted for 37½, 24½, 24½ and 12 feet, about 100 feet of the 140 of Pliny. The amount may be filled up by assuming that the whole stood on a high podium or basis, and by inserting an attic over the pteron, or in other ways.
4. If the reading aequavit for aequat be accepted, an opening is left for Mr. Oldfield’s view, that after the building had been set up with a pyramid rising to a point, it was decided to add a chariot on the top, and that in order to accomplish this, a basis was built round the topmost steps of the pyramid, of which six were thus concealed from view.
5. Sir C. Newton[312] and Mr. Pullan accepted the reading ‘altitudinem inferiorem’ for altitudine, and had supposed the assertion to be that the height of the pyramid above was equal to that of the basis below the pyramid. This is, however, a mere correction of the text. If we adhere to the reading of the MSS. we must retain altitudine, and suppose inferiorem to apply to a second pyramid beneath the pteron. It is thus that Mr. Oldfield takes the phrase, and of the existence of this second pyramid he finds proof in the testimony of Guichard, to which we shall next turn. The height of this lower pyramid he supposes to have been equal to that of the original pyramid of twenty-four steps, not of course to the later truncated pyramid of eighteen steps.
It will be seen on referring to Figs. [78] and [79] that the acceptance of one or the other of these readings of Pliny makes a great difference in the principles of reconstruction. Mr. Pullan admitted no lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot on the summit as part of the original design, makes the twenty-four steps of the upper pyramid support it. Mr. Oldfield does admit a lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot as a later addition works into its basis six steps of the upper pyramid. Hence a great difference between the two restorers in the area covered by the base of the upper pyramid, which is far larger in Mr. Pullan’s design: and this affects the whole form of the building, since the excavations determined the size of the area on which the whole stood. It is not easy to meet Mr. Oldfield’s argument in favour of his design, that the phrase ‘tapering to a point’ applies far better to his pyramid, as originally intended, than to Mr. Pullan’s flat-topped pyramid.