733). The remarkable feature of the inscription is that it mentions
three [Greek: parastades], first an isolated one, and then a pair of
them, one on either side of a door. The single [Greek: parastas], the
first to be mentioned is again that part of the partition-wall east of
the door in the west cella. This door was near the west end of the wall,
so that the space between it and the west wall of the temple was
negligible. Thus for one entering by that door there was a [Greek:
parastas] on the left, but none on the right. When however he passed
into the [Greek: naos tês Athênas] through a door which stood a little
south of the middle of the wall (and opposite the door in the west wall
of the temple) he had a [Greek: parastas] upon his left and also upon
his right. The [Greek: parastades] are interior walls on either side of
a door which in the Erechtheum reached up only five courses above the
orthostates. The paintings which Pausanias found in the first room favor
the opinion that the treasures which hung on the parastas were on the
south side of that wall--i.e., in the second room of the [Greek: diploun
oikêma]. Whether or not there is any order in the enumeration of the
treasures is a question. If there is, then it naturally begins with
treasures first seen after entering from the [Greek: prostasis hê pros
tou thyrômatos], just as the record of the commissioners in the case of
interior walls begins with walls in the first room, just as the
description of Pausanias begins with the contents of the first room.
This coincidence is remarkable, and is true of no other theory about the
temple.
It is a necessary consequence of this interpretation that some treasures
were in the west part of the Erechtheum. Perhaps then something may be
said for the scholiast on Aristophanes, _Plutus_, 1183 (reading [Greek:
oikos] for [Greek: toichos] and keeping in mind the [Greek: diploun
oikêma] of Pausanias's description): [Greek: opisô tou neô tês
kaloumenês Poliados Athênas diplous oikos (toichos) echôn thyran, hopou]
ên thêsaurophylakion]. The words [Greek: echôn thyran] suggest that the
scholiast wished to distinguish between a [Greek: diplous oikos] the two
parts of which were connected by a door and another type the two parts
of which were not so connected but separately entered from without.
Pausanias seems to give an instance of the latter in II, 25, 1. White
(_Harvard Studies_, Vol. VI, p. 39) refers the scholium to the restored
west part of the Hekatompedon but does not discuss the meaning of
[Greek: echôn thyran], which Michaelis was unable to explain. In White's
so-called opisthodomus, to which door of three possible ones does the
scholiast refer? The three chambers of his opisthodomus do not satisfy
the requirements of a [Greek: diplous oikos], the reading which he
accepts (_op. cit._, p. 4, note 3). More reasonable is the
interpretation that the scholiast had in mind the west cella of the
Erechtheum in which some treasures seemed to have been placed, and that
he used the words [Greek: neôs kaloumenês Poliados Athênas] in the
stricter sense, just as Pausanias called the east cella [Greek: naos tês
Poliados] (I. 27. 1), and regarded the [Greek: diplous oikos] as lying
behind it. The [Greek: neôs tês Athênas] was oriented east, and what was
immediately west was behind it. But it is not to be supposed that the
west cella of the Erechtheum was ever called an opisthodomus. The
scholiast seems however to have the oldest Athena temple in mind.
There is a point perhaps of slight moment which deserves a word. One of
the paintings, that of Erechtheus driving a chariot, was painted,
according to the scholiast on Aristides, I, 107, 5, behind the goddess.
A possible interpretation is that the painting was in the cella of
Athena on the wall behind the xoanon, but the paintings of the Butadae
were in the first room which Pausanias entered. Unless the painting of
Erechtheus was separate from those of the Butadae, then the new
arrangement of the interior permits a satisfactory solution of the
difficulty. For the east wall of the room in which were the paintings
of the Butadae was behind the goddess. According to the old plan,
Pausanias found the paintings in the western chamber of the [Greek:
diploun oikêma], that is, between them and the wall against which stood
the xoanon, was a chamber. The passage may mean that in a painting
Erechtheus appeared behind Athena driving a chariot (Petersen, _Jb.
Arch. Inst._, 1902, p. 64; _Burgtempel_, p. 110). In the sequence of
words in the sentence, [Greek: en tê akropolei opisô tês theou], the
second phrase seems to be a closer definition of the place than is given
in the first. Furthermore, position was determined by reference to the
xoanon. An interior wall was located with reference to it, [Greek: to
pros togalmatos]. The scholiast on Aristophanes, _Equites_, 1169, is
interesting in this connection because he shows what part a statue might
play in the designation of a temple: [Greek: duo eisin epi tês
akropoleôs Athênas naoi, ho tês Poliados kai hê chryselephantinê].
In the light of the new arrangement within the Erechtheum, the reference
of Vitruvius (IV, 8, 4) to the temple becomes clearer. Speaking of it
and other temples he says: "cellae enim longitudinibus duplices sunt ad
latitudines uti reliquae, sed is omnia quae solent esse in frontibus ad
latera sunt translata" (Petersen, _Burgtempel_, p. 144). If the cella of
Athena was completely separate from that of Erechtheus and at a higher
level, he could not have said reasonably of the cella of the temple that
it was twice as long as wide like other temples. For the cellae of
Athena and Erechtheus ought then to have been considered separately. In
the new plan such a statement applies with greater force because the low
partitions might be readily disregarded. The second statement shows that
Vitruvius regarded the east façade of a temple as the front, and normal
place of entrance, but that this and the more elaborate porch were
transferred in the case of the Erechtheum to what would be the side of
other temples. As Petersen, (_op. cit._, p. 143) says, the words
"columnis adjectis dextra ac sinistra ad umeros pronai" are a clear
reference to the north porch. This too seems to be the [Greek: pronaos]
which Lucian refers to in Piscator, 21: [Greek: entautha pou en tô
pronaô tês poliados dikasômen. Hê hiereia diathes hêmin ta bathra,
hêmeis de en tosoutô proskynêsômen tê theô]. This interpretation is
perfectly consistent with the fundamental contention that the [Greek:
prostasis hê pros tou thyrômatos] determines the front of the building.
The theory set forth in the above pages is in perfect accord with the
description in Pausanias. It is confirmed by the evidence of the
inscriptions and of the building itself so far as that evidence goes.
The serious criticism of the accepted plan of the Erechtheum is that all
theories based upon it disagree with the written evidences, not with one
written record of a later period like the simple account of Pausanias,
but with another record centuries earlier, namely the contemporary
official inscription. Investigators attempt the solution of the problem
after accepting the restored interior as certain. The keynote of the
present theory is that the interior of the temple has been too far
destroyed to make any one restoration absolutely certain on the basis of
the evidence of the building alone, and that all available evidence must
be used simultaneously to determine the correct restoration.
IV
THE ERECHTHEUM AS PLANNED
The question as to the original plan of the Erechtheum follows naturally
the interpretation of the building as built. That the west wall was
planned for its present place seems improbable for a number of reasons.
The north porch is out of proportion to the room into which it opens,
and by reaching beyond the west wall of the temple becomes in part porch
to an open precinct. The west front has columns and Caryatids at
different levels (Dörpfeld, _Ath. Mitt._, 1904, p. 101). The displeasing
effect of this difference could not have been concealed by the walls of
the Pandroseum, the south one of which reached as high as the parapet of
the porch of the maidens. The latter porch illustrates the skill of the
architect in concealing differences of level. The unique closed wall on
which the maidens stand was his device for concealing from view from
without, a door which was below the level of the porch and which
belonged to the interior whereas the porch belonged to the exterior. The
architect, by placing the entrance to the porch at the north east corner
close to the wall, completely concealed the presence of the low door.
With this care to conceal a difference of level, the west side of the
temple is in marked contrast.
The north-west corner of the western cella is peculiar in two ways. The
western jamb of the door cuts 3-1/2 cm. into the west wall of the
temple. This suggests crowding and is satisfactorily explained by the
condition of the foundations below. The foundation of the west wall does
not key into that of the north wall (Fig. 11), a fact seeming to prove
that when the latter foundation was laid, it was not the intention of
the architect to place a foundation in the line of the present west
wall, and to crowd the door jamb into that wall.
Of the symmetrical exterior proposed by Prof. Dörpfeld there lies a
suggestion in the fact that the north and south doors have the same
axis, although the Caryatid porch has not. The porch seems to have been
moved a little to the east of its intended place that it might not
project beyond the west wall, but not far enough to prevent the cornice
of the porch from so projecting.
The west wall itself offers evidence of a curtailment of the original
plan. By way of introduction let us compare the east façade, which is
Greek with the west façade, the part of which above the closed wall is
Roman (_Arx Athenarum_, Pl. XXV, D, and _A. J. A._, 1906, Pl. VIII). The
windows in the east wall which Stevens has determined with accuracy were
placed at the height of four ordinary courses above the base moulding
and two courses from the top of the wall, just as were the Roman windows
in the west wall. The second course above the eastern windows was a
moulding, the corresponding course above the western windows is plain
probably because of the adjacent capitals. Below both sets of windows
were three courses of blocks. In the east wall orthostates were
justifiable, in the west wall they would have been illogical because on
neither side was there a floor, but three courses equal in height to
four ordinary courses were placed there. Stevens has shown that the
eastern windows were seven courses high including the lintel. The
western windows are five courses high. The explanation of the difference
of height is simple. The eastern wall was thirteen courses high, the
western eleven. The western windows were two courses shorter in order
that they and their counterparts, the eastern windows, might be
equidistant from the base of the wall, namely four ordinary courses, and
from the top of the wall, namely two courses. The fact that the sills of
the Greek windows were one meter lower than the Roman windows is of no
consequence whatsoever. The fact of great importance is that the east
and west windows occupied the same relative position in the façade. The
stylobate of the western façade could not be placed so low as the
eastern because of the door and the necessity of a heavy block three
courses high at the south end of the wall. This block could not be
placed lower because of the Cecropium (= temple of Pandrosus?) which
crossed the line of the wall, to judge from the cuttings in it beneath
the heavy block. Had the architect wished equality of height for the
eastern and western colonnades he would have been compelled to place the
stylobate of the western two courses lower. This would have made it
impossible to place a door in that wall which was necessary probably for
a reason of cult.
[Illustration: FIGURE 11
THE INTERIOR N.W. CORNER OF THE ERECHTHEUM. MODERN MASONRY UNDER N. END
OF W. WALL]
In Roman times therefore the western windows were placed with careful
reference to the eastern. Between the columns in each case appeared
windows, two in the eastern wall with door between, three in the western
where a door was impossible. Both façades were surmounted by epistyle,
frieze and pediment. The wall below the western colonnade was a
substitute for the higher ground level of the east side. The Romans who
repaired the wall repaired it with reference to the east front. For them
the west façade was simply a combination of wall with windows, and
colonnade. Unless the Greeks had a western façade of columns and wall
with windows essentially like the Roman restoration, we are forced to
make a strange assumption. The Greek architect conceived the idea of
combining wall with colonnade in one plane and then instead of carrying
his idea to its conclusion put in a wooden grille in the
intercoluminations above a low wall of three courses, a grille which
answers to nothing in the east façade, and then left it to the Romans to
exploit his idea by placing there three windows.
The only obstacle to the perfectly natural assumption that the Romans
restored the essential features of the west wall as it was in Greek
times is the testimony of a contemporary inscription (I. G., I, Suppl.,
321. col. III, 18) that one Comon a carpenter was paid a sum of 40 dr.
for "fencing" ([Greek: diapharchsanti]) four intercolumniations on the
wall toward the Pandroseum: [Greek: diapharchsanti ta metakionia tettara
onta ta pros to Pandroseio]. The accepted interpretation of the passage
is that a wooden grille was the final form of the west wall and remained
so until Roman times. The objection to this interpretation is that we
must then believe that the Greek architect planned a wooden grille for a
marble building in a wall exposed to the elements where repair would be
necessary from time to time and that only in the Roman period did the
change to more enduring marble take place. It is probable that the
wooden grille was only temporary and was soon replaced by a wall with
windows. Whatever the interpretation of the inscription, the fact
remains that the present form of the west wall is a restoration made
with deliberate reference to the east façade. It is a studied
restoration which far from being an arbitrary creation of the 4th
century A.D., as Penrose (_op. cit._, p. 93) regarded it, is too
original for a Roman period. The imitation is Roman, the idea is Greek.
The very same idea is expressed in the Sidon sarcophagus of the mourning
women, an Attic work of about 350 B.C. The illusion produced by the
sarcophagus is that of female figures standing between the columns of
the peristyle of a temple (Hamdy Bey-Reinach, _Une Nécropole Royale à
Sidon_, p. 241). The west façade in Greek times as in Roman was simply a
compression together in one plane of colonnade and wall--a combination
to which the architect was forced by the curtailment of his plan.
It is almost certain that the original plan of the architect was for a
building with an east and west portico equidistant from the north porch
as Prof. Dörpfeld has maintained. The east and west façades were to be
exactly alike, but, prevented by religious conservatism from building
upon the sites of the Cecropium and Pandroseum, and thus compelled to
abandon the western half of the original building, the architect sought
still to save the similarity of the east and west façades. Since he was
unable to build his projected west portico at the line to which he was
forced back, he evolved as a substitute the idea of placing all the
essential features of his west portico in one plane--column bases and
base moulding of wall, columns and wall with windows, frieze and
pediment. The low wall in the southernmost intercolumniation which for
some reason was not completely closed was three courses high. The
northern intercolumniation was completely closed as in Roman times and
in the central ones, the windows rested on three courses equal in height
to four normal Greek courses.
It must have been the desire for close similarity between the two
façades which prevented both Greek and Roman architect from placing four
normal courses beneath the western windows. The change from blocks of
standard height led to a complication because there were eleven ordinary
courses in the western wall instead of twelve which would have given
exactly nine courses of the higher blocks. The eastern windows were
simultaneously visible between the columns from points in the axis of
the door (Fig. 7). It is natural to assume that those of the original
west façade were to have been so. The curtailment of the plan which
compelled the architect to place a compressed west façade on a high
socle, eliminated the door. A natural substitution was a third window.
This theory as to the composition of the west wall suggests an
interpretation of the unusual construction at the upper south-west
corner of the temple (_A. J. A._, 1908, p. 191, fig. 2, and p. 194,
fig. 6; 1910, p. 297, fig. 3). There the south wall was reduced to one
half of its regular thickness, and this thinner wall flanked on the east
by the metopon which rested in part upon a square horizontal slab. The
purpose of this metopon has remained obscure.
As hitherto remarked, it was the architect's intention to close the
southern as well as the northern intercolumniation of the west wall but
he was prevented, apparently for some religious reason. Now it seems
very probable that the unusual construction at the corner is the result
of an attempt to build a substitute wall for that which could not be
placed in the southern intercolumniation. Two considerations favor this
explanation. In the first place the horizontal slab inclines toward the
opening. The certain purpose of this inclination was to shed rain-water.
Secondly, traces on the south wall show that the metopon was coextensive
in height with the opening and projected along the eastern edge of the
horizontal slab. The epistyle of the metopon, which appears in the
restoration (_A. J. A._, 1908, fig. 6, p. 196) is purely a conjecture
and may be eliminated. But how far did this metopon project into the
building? Was it coextensive in width as well as in height with the
opening? The distance which the metopon projected into the building is
not certainly known. In the restoration it is given as one foot but this
is a calculation based on a combination of probabilities. The obvious
provision to keep out rain-water, if it was to be successful, demands
the extension of the metopon to the inner corner of the horizontal slab.
But this slab unsupported could not have carried a marble metopon. This
is a difficulty which seems to compel the assumption that the metopon
was in part of lighter material.
Apart from serving the purpose of keeping out rain, the conjectured
metopon would also be a counterpart to the northern intercolumniation
when the façade was viewed from the west. The increase in weight due to
the metopon and the horizontal slab necessitated a counterbalancing
reduction in the weight of the south wall because of its insecure
foundations. The idea, in short, is simply this. Just as when the
architect was not allowed to place the west façade where he wished and
retreated to a line at which he was allowed to build it in a necessarily
modified form, so when he could not build a wall in the southern
intercolumniation of that façade, he withdrew still farther back and
built a substitute at the line allowed. The extra weight thus produced
was partly responsible for the thinning of the insecurely founded south
wall.
It is Prof. Dörpfeld's theory that the Cecropium compelled the architect
to place the present west wall 1 m. east of the line at which it was
intended in the original plan to stand (_Ath. Mitt._, 1904, p. 105). He
therefore regards that wall as an interior one of the original
symmetrical temple. The theory here advanced is that the west wall is
the original west façade compressed into one plane and placed at the
line up to which the architect was permitted to build. The west wall of
the Pre-Persian Erechtheum seems to have stood at about the same line to
judge from the representation of it and the olive close by in the
archaic pedimental sculpture to which reference has already been made
(Petersen, _Burgtempel_, p. 22, abb. 2). Just as the architect of the
Propylaea planned to cut through the Pelasgic wall and to build upon the
precinct of Brauronian Artemis, but when he came to lay foundations was
stopped at the wall, so the contemporary architect of the Erechtheum
planned a symmetrical temple the west part of which was to occupy the
site of the precinct of Pandrosus and Cecrops, but when he came to
actual construction was stopped by the same religious conservatism. The
form of the present west wall is as much like the originally planned
west façade as the architect could make it. East and west façades were
to be equidistant from the north porch and from the Caryatid Porch which
would have served to break the monotony of the long rear wall.
Having discovered in the west wall the compressed façade of an
originally symmetrically planned Erechtheum, it is desirable to inquire
whether the curtailment of that plan caused a crowding of cults within
the temple as finally built. It has already been remarked that the
feeling which the north porch creates is that it should be, and was
intended to be the porch to an interior of larger dimensions than those
of the present plan. Now the _thalassa_ and the mark of the trident were
fixed, but the paintings of the Butadae and the three altars were
movable. It is altogether probable that the congestion in the west half
of the present Erechtheum was due to the crowding in of a chamber with
the three altars of Poseidon-Erechtheus, Hephaestus and Butes, and the
paintings of the Butadae--a chamber which in the original plan was to be
placed at the west end of the symmetrical temple (Fig. 12).
Within the original Erechtheum at the east end marked off by a
partition-wall was to be the shrine of Athena Polias. The western
chamber of Poseidon-Erechtheus, the exact counterpart of the eastern,
was to receive the altars and paintings. The intervening central chamber
of proportions in harmony with those of the north porch was to contain
the _thalassa_ and the sacred olive, which would require that the temple
be in part hypaethral. Furtwängler (_Sitzb. Mün. Akad._, 1904, p. 371)
rightly indeed objects to Dörpfeld's theory that the western cella in
the original temple was to be an opisthodomus, on the ground that if the
eastern cella contained a divinity, the western ought also. Furthermore,
for those who believe that the magnificent north porch determines the
front of the Erechtheum, the western cella would have been situated on
the side, not at the rear of the temple. The interior wall-pilasters on
either side of the doors were intended in the original to carry heavy
cross-beams. In the temple as built, the eastern pair were carried up
only five courses above the orthostates, i.e. as high as the
partition-walls. Their completion was rendered unnecessary when the
builders decided to put in the [Greek: kampylê selis].
[Illustration: FIGURE 12
THE ORIGINAL PLAN OF THE ERECHTHEUM.]
When this original plan had to be abandoned, not only was the large
central chamber reduced in breadth, but was divided into a front and
rear cella. In the first of these, which one entered immediately from
the north porch ([Greek: eselthousi]) were placed the three altars and
on the walls, the paintings of the Butadae. In the inner cella ([Greek:
endon]) were the trident-mark and the _thalassa_. It is perfectly clear
why Pausanias found no door leading from the first chamber of the
[Greek: diploun oikêma] into the [Greek: naos tês Athênas]. In the
original plan, the cella of Athena and the large central chamber of the
tokens were connected by a door in the middle of their partition-wall,
while the cellae of Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus were not to be in
immediate connection. These relations were preserved in the curtailed
plan. The meaning of the door in the west wall is also simple. In the
original plan the sacred olive tree and the _thalassa_ were to stand in
the large central chamber, but in the curtailed plan the sacred olive
was left outside the temple and in the Pandroseum. A closed wall between
the two tokens would have separated them completely. They belonged
together, and a door was a poor substitute for a common chamber but it
was the only means of connection possible.