The temple of Zeus at Olympia had much in common with the Parthenon, being nearly contemporaneous, built to enshrine a second chryselephantine statue by Pheidias, and in plan having a similar arrangement of columns inside the cella; the lower range of columns (according to Pausanias) supported a gallery round, so that privileged visitors could approach nearer to the statue. The temple, however, was built in the local conglomerate stone covered with a thin coat of stucco and painted.
Of circular temples there are two examples known, the Philippeion at Olympia and the Tholos at Epidaurus. The latter had, inside the cella, a peristyle of Corinthian columns, the capitals of which are of great beauty and represent in their design the transition between those of the monument of Lysicrates and the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens.
In the sacred enclosures of the Greek sanctuaries were other smaller temples or shrines, altars, statues and treasuries, the latter being built by the various cities, from which pilgrimages were made, to contain their treasures. At Olympia there were ten or eleven, the remains of some of which are of great interest. Of the treasury of the Cnidians at Delphi, discovered by the French, so much has been found that it has been possible to evolve a complete conjectural restoration in plaster, now in the Louvre. Its sculpture and the rich carving of its architectural features show that it was Ionian in character. In front was a portico-in-antis, in which the caryatide figures standing on pedestals took the place of columns. These are the earliest examples known of caryatide figures, and they precede those of the Erechtheum by about a century.
| Fig. 17.—Lycian Tomb of Telmessus. |
The most important temple in Asia Minor was the temple of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesus (356-334 B.C.). The archaic temple was burnt in 356, and was immediately rebuilt with greater splendour from the designs of Paeonius. The site of the temple was discovered by Wood in 1869, and the remains brought over to the British Museum in 1875. There were 100 columns, 36 of which (according to Pliny) were sculptured, and it was probably on account of the magnificence of the sculpture that this temple was included among the seven wonders of the world. The sculptured bases are of two kinds, square and circular, in the latter case being the lower drums of the columns. Examples of both are in the British Museum, and several conjectural restorations have been made, among which that of Dr A.S. Murray has been generally accepted, but recent researches (1905) suggest that it remains still an unsolved problem.
The temple of Apollo Didymaeus, near Miletus, was the largest temple in Asia Minor, and its erection followed that of the temple at Ephesus, Paeonius and Daphnis of Miletus being the architects. The temple was decastyle, dipteral, with pronaos and vestibule, but no opisthodomos. The cella was so wide (75 ft.) that it remained open to the sky. The bases of the columns were elaborately carved with ornament, as if in rivalry with the temple of Diana. Both these temples were of the Ionic order, as also were those of Athena Polias at Priene (340 B.C.), many of the capitals of which are in the British Museum, and the temples of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias and Cybele at Sardis.
The mausoleum at Halicarnassus, also of the Ionic order, built by Queen Artemisia in memory of her husband Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., was, according to Pliny, recorded as one of the seven wonders of the world, probably on account of the eminence of the sculptors employed, Bryaxis, Leochares, Timotheus, Scopas and Pythius. Pliny’s description is somewhat vague, so that its actual design is a problem not yet solved. Professor Cockerell’s restoration is in accord with the description, but does not quite agree with the actual remains brought over by Newton and deposited in the British Museum. If the Nereid monument and the tombs at Cnidus and Mylasa be taken as suggesting the design, the peristyle (pteron) of thirty-six columns of the Ionic order with entablature stood on a lofty podium, richly decorated with bands of sculpture, and was crowned by a pyramid which, according to Pliny, “contracted itself by twenty-four steps into the summit of a meta.” The steps found are not high enough to constitute a meta, and it is possible therefore that, according to Mr J.J. Stevenson, these steps were over the peristyle only, and that the lofty steps which constituted the meta were in the centre, carried by the inner row of columns. The magnificent sculpture of the Macedonian period has in recent times been demonstrated by the discovery of the marble sarcophagi found at Sidon by Hamdi Bey and now in the museum at Constantinople.
The Lycian tombs, of which there are many hundreds carved in the rock in the south of Asia Minor, are copies of timber structures, based on the stone architecture of the neighbouring Greek cities (fig. 17). The Paiafaor Payava tomb (375-362 B.C.), found at Xanthus and now in the British Museum, is apparently a copy, cut in the solid rock, of a portable shrine, in which the wood construction is clearly defined.
Capitals of the Greek Corinthian order have been found at Bassae, Epidaurus, Olympia and Miletus, but the earliest example of the complete order is represented in the Choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens.
The most important example of the Greek Corinthian order is that of the temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, begun in 174 B.C., but not completed till the time of Hadrian, A.D. 117. The temple was 135 ft. wide and 354 ft. long, built entirely in Pentelic marble, the columns being 56 ft. high. There were eight columns in front and a double peristyle round.