is the most numerous, forming at times an extended necropolis. Though
the majority are not free from Hellenic influences, they yet generally
maintain the peculiar national characteristics, being imitations of
wooden constructions somewhat similar to the rock-cut tombs. The lid in
some instances appears to be of slat-work, and, instead of the
semicircular gable common in Phœnicia, presents a pointed arch. The
cornice dentils distinctly betray their derivation from the projecting
ceiling beams, which, upon the block-house tombs, had still preserved
the round form of unhewn timbers. A tomb at Antiphellos (_Fig._ 114) has
a channel cut upon the summit of the lid, probably to serve as a socket
for the ridge-crestings. The heads of lions and other projecting
ornaments upon the sides enrich the architectural treatment. The
monument cannot be spoken of as a sarcophagus, in the true sense of the
word, for its lid was not movable, the body being introduced from the
front, where window-like openings were provided for the purpose.
[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Sarcophagus at Antiphellos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Rock-cut Tomb at Telmissos.]
A fourth class of Lycian rock-cut tombs, those with a façade resembling
a small temple-front, is of particular interest to the history of
architecture. Many among these display the influence of a late Hellenic
period, yet some preserve such primitive forms as to make it certain
that Lycia took a prominent part in the development of the Ionic
style--that the southern coast of Asia Minor was an important station,
marking the advance of artistic culture from Mesopotamia to the Ægean
Sea. These tombs generally represent the front of a temple in
antis--that is to say, of a portico with two columns between the
advanced side walls. The predominant Ionic forms are singularly
primitive in the capital and entablature, the greater number of the
examples showing no trace of the decline of the style, or of the Roman
type, so easily recognizable by the formal character of the details.
These differ greatly, and seem to show the experiments of an early
period of development, which may still have been contemporaneous with a
far higher advance of the style upon the more northern coasts of the
Ægean Sea and Sporades, being influenced in a different degree by the
same Western Asiatic motives. The important combination which
characterizes the perfection of Ionic architecture--the conjunction of
the volute with the Doric echinos beneath it--does not appear upon these
capitals; the spiral has not a graceful curve, and the contraction of
the side rolls of the volute is lacking; the abacus is badly profiled,
and the shafts are often joined without a curve to the clumsy bases.
(Compare _Fig._ 116.) As was always the case among the Orientals, who
knew of no independent gable and roof formation above the ceiling, the
entablature consisted of only two members,--the epistyle, uniting the
columns, and the terminating cornice. The triple division of the
entablature, of so marked importance in the perfected style, was not
known; even the two members here occurring were not sharply defined, and
the dentils of the cornice were fully developed at a time when their
original constructive significance had not yet been forgotten in their
decorative application. The gable acroteria are clumsy knops, similar to
the circular ridge ornaments and the horn-like corner pieces of
Phœnician monuments. In short, we may trace in the rock-cut tombs of
Lycia, if not a Proto-Ionic style, yet a distinct parallel development
of the most primitive Ionic forms. These did not exclude the influence
of Greece, after the full perfection of the style had been attained, but
rather prepared its way. An example of such later semi-Hellenic work may
be observed in the magnificent monument of Xanthos, built in the middle
of the fourth century B.C. as a trophy after the capture of Telmissos by
the Xanthians. This also has been in part transported to the British
Museum. This structure was not cut from the solid rock, but was built of
quarried stones. It shows the full development of Ionic forms. Upon a
comparatively high substructure there stood a cella surrounded by
columns--of a peripteral arrangement rare in Lycia, where all the tombs
which represent temples seem to show that the national places of
worship, like those of Assyria and Phœnicia, were restricted to a
portico in antis, the evolution of the peripteros being an improvement
of the Greeks. The naïve originality observable in the Ionic does not
exist in the more isolated Doric forms, although a few very archaic
monuments of the latter style are known. Their existence is explained by
the vicinity of Crete, that southern outpost of early Doric culture, as
well as by the neighboring Doric colonies which flourished upon the
southwestern extremity of Asia Minor.
[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Details of Columns from Telmissos, Myra, and
Antiphellos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 117.--So-called Tomb of Midas.]
[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Phrygian Rock-cut Tomb near Doganlu.]
Lycia appears to have had but little influence upon the other countries
of the seaboard, which were almost entirely Hellenized; nor did its
influence penetrate as far into the interior country as Phrygia, where
the civilization of the Greeks was introduced only by way of the Ægean
and Pontic coasts. There were neither frequented ports nor navigable
streams to open the way. The tracklessness of wooded mountains
restricted the commercial and intellectual horizon of the Phrygians,
who, as a nomadic people, were contented with the slightest artistic
exertion. In the same way as the Lycian carved his wooden hut upon the
face of the cliff, that he might retain after his death the beloved
dwelling of his life, the Phrygian ornamented the front of his grotto
graves by a representation of his movable house, the nomadic tent. Only
the cloth of the tent, with its woven pattern, was shown; its
constructive ribs, not visible upon the exterior of the original, were
omitted from the imitation. The most important of these tomb
frontispieces, between Kiutahija and Sivrihissar upon the Saquaria,
which are attributed to Phrygian kings, is called by the Turks
Yasili-Kaia (the inscribed stone). (_Fig._ 117.) It is known as the Tomb
of Midas from the one legible word, Midai, occurring in an
unintelligible inscription. Upon the face of the cliff there is cut a
square surface, 11 m. broad and about 9 m. high, terminated above by a
low gable, which, with the acroterium, adds 3 m. to the height of the
whole. The triangle is framed by a light lattice-work in low relief, and
crowned with two volutes, similar to the circular ridge decorations of
Phœnician tombs. The tympanon is not carved, but probably, with the
entire front, was painted. The extensive rectangular surface beneath is
covered with a complicated meander ornament in relief--a play of lines
evidently taken from a woven pattern and resembling the decorations of
Moorish walls, where the fundamental motive was also the tent-cloth. The
border of this surface represents, without conventionalization, an
edging set with precious stones, such as may have been customary upon
costly Syrian stuffs. The small interior chamber was only large enough
for the reception of a sarcophagus. The entrance to it was not marked by
any architectural features--even as the tent itself was not provided
with a door--but the passage was originally closed by a slab, upon the
face of which the woven pattern was without doubt continued. A second
tomb of the vicinity, also marked by an undecipherable inscription, is
of similar character. (_Fig._ 118.) The gable represents a wooden
construction, somewhat like the framing of Lycian sarcophagi; its double
acroterium is decorated with three rosettes. The principal surface, the
square below, is without carving, and had probably a painted pattern. A
third frontispiece of this type shows a floral frieze of alternate
palmettoes and buds, resembling an Assyrian motive, but inverted,
perhaps because its direct model was the border of a carpet. It recalls
the hanging rows of pomegranates upon the columns Jachin and Boaz of
Solomon’s Temple. The cliffs of Phrygia are honey-combed by such
rock-cut tombs. Especially in the district north of Seid-el-Ar are there
numberless small grottoes, the entrances to which are either perfectly
plain or provided only with a simple triangular gable--all giving proof
of the rarity of artistic effort among these idyllic mountains.
The influence of Assyrian and Persian methods is evident even to the
west of the river Halys, the border of the Mesopotamian dominion before
Cyrus; but upon its farther banks, in Eastern Phrygia, Oriental art is
universally prevalent. At Eyuk there are remains, supposed to be those
of a temple, with a portal flanked by monsters like the cherubim of
Nineveh and Persepolis. At Boghaz-Kieui, besides rock-cut reliefs
entirely similar to those of Persia, there are the foundations of a
terrace with the ruins of a palace, built upon the plan of the royal
dwellings of Persepolis.
Lydia, the last of the three independent countries of Asia Minor, was so
near to the Ionic cities of the coast, and so exposed to the influence
of their civilization, that but few national peculiarities were
preserved in the historical period. The tumulus was there, as in early
Greece, the customary form of the monumental tomb. In Lydia, as in
Etruria, numbers of these mounds stood in an extended necropolis. The
conical tumulus is as characteristic a form for the extreme west of Asia
Minor, for the Troad, as the strictly geometrical pyramid is for Egypt,
or its terraced variation for Mesopotamia. The mound of earth was at
times reveted with a masonry of large polygonal blocks, or placed upon a
low cylindrical drum of such Cyclopean walls; the only architectural
ornaments were simple base and cornice mouldings. The best-preserved,
though not the most important, monument of this kind is the so-called
Grave of Tantalos upon Mount Sipylos, near Smyrna, one of a group of
twelve. (_Fig._ 119.) The rectangular chamber in its centre, 3.5 m. long
and almost 3 m. high, is roofed by a false vault, the horizontal,
gradually projecting stones being cut within to the outline of a pointed
arch. The entrance to this tumulus, like the shafts of the Egyptian
pyramids, was hidden by the casing of exterior masonry. The fragments of
a stone pier near by, somewhat like the Meghazil monument of Amrith,
probably belonged to the ornament upon the summit of the cone, which,
with a diameter of plan equal to 33.6 m., attained a height of 27.6 m.
Of greater grandeur, though in an entire state of destruction, are the
royal graves of the Lydian capital. The world-renowned name of Sardis
has been preserved in the appellation of the squalid village Sarabat now
standing upon its site. In its vicinity are the remains of more than one
hundred tumuli. The most important of these, with a cylindrical drum 257
m. in diameter and 18.5 m. high, still rises to an elevation of 61.5 m.
It is with some probability identified with that monument of Alyattes
described by Herodotos, who exaggerates its dimensions to a diameter of
400 m. The cone of rammed earth was apparently not reveted with stone.
Upon its apex there was a pier of five blocks, which bore a
hemispherical termination; of this various fragments have been found.
[Illustration: Fig. 119.--The So-called Grave of Tantalos.]
These tumuli approach in dimensions closely to the pyramids of Egypt.
The elevation of the cone upon a cylindrical base was a certain advance,
but its execution was such as to allow of no comparison between the
monuments of the two countries. The pyramids of Egypt were built; the
tumuli of Lydia were merely heaped up of earth. The former demanded
great technical ability and the assistance of a commanding and
calculating mind; the latter were the works of an enslaved people alone.
But, on the other hand, the Lydian cones more closely resembled the
natural form of a funeral mound than did the pyramids of Egypt and
Mesopotamia, and on this account were capable of greater development.
Such tumuli are to be met with from Asia to Etruria, and were adopted
even by the great architects of Greece: the highest artistic
civilization always gives preference to the simplest solution of a
problem.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.--View of the Athenian Propylæa. Restoration.]
HELLAS.
The Mediterranean Sea was the heart of the Old World; the important
lands of the early history of civilization were grouped about its richly
indented shores, generally decreasing in respect of culture as they
receded from it. The northeastern part of the Mediterranean, because of
its many islands, having an even greater proportionate coast-line, was
the centre of the countries ennobled by Hellenic civilization.
Separating and uniting at once, like all the waters of the earth, the
Ægean Sea formed the boundary between the two chief races of Greek
intellectual life--the Dorians and the Ionians; while it was, at the
same time, the favoring medium of exchange for the productions of their
genius. European Greece, with its predominating Doric population, and
the almost exclusively Ionic coasts of Asia Minor, equally looked upon
this sea as their own, traversing it with thousands of ships, and
gaining more from the trackless waters before them than from the
interior lands of the immense continents whose seaboard alone they were
content to occupy. In Asia the Greeks were restricted to the countries
upon its uttermost western border; in European Greece the development
was chiefly directed towards the eastern coast, paying even less
attention to their own shores on the Adriatic than to the early
colonized ports of Magna-Græcia and Sicily. The Archipelago itself
provided convenient strongholds and outposts in every direction. The
numerous harbors and anchoring-places of its many islands offered
protection against the notorious treachery of the Ægean main--a
protection imperatively necessary for the primitive seafarers of
antiquity. But, as in the history of all civilization, the currents of
Greek intellectual and artistic progress moved distinctly from east to
west. The European (Doric) culture was in itself less calculated to
influence Asia than the Asiatic (Ionic) to affect the younger continent.
It was, as decided by nature, upon European soil, upon Attica--the most
advanced promontory of European Greece--that the two branches of the
Greek race united, and bore in Athens that double fruit at which we
marvel. The Dorians, displaced, in some measure, by the rapid growth of
Ionic Asia and Europe, turned still farther westward, and settled upon
the shores of Sicily and the Gulf of Tarention, where imposing monuments
still attest the extent of their power.
The legends of the wanderings of Hellenic tribes, and especially of the
so-called Doric migration, were based upon the busy currents of
intercourse between Asia and Europe, over seas and straits, and between
the European continent and the Morea, the Island of Pelops. The
relations and the quarrels of Hellenic and semi-barbaric peoples upon
each side of the Ægean are illustrated by the tales of the Argonauts and
their voyage, and of the Trojan War, both of which bear the stamp of a
certain piratical rivalry. The fatal lack of unity, resulting from the
separate development of neighboring districts, could not be more
distinctly characterized than by the fact that the Greek races, although
they felt themselves divided from other nations--from _barbarians_--by
an impassable gulf, and were aware of their own absolute intellectual
superiority, yet lacked any comprehensive designation for themselves:
the name _Greeks_, or _Hellenes_, is of comparatively recent origin.
The Homeric epics prove that the intellectual development of the people
to whom the immortal poet belonged stood, at least as early as the ninth
century B.C., at a height to which nations of such primitive
civilization as the Egyptians and Chaldæans had never attained.
Phenomenal as the appearance of those poems may have been, they still
could not have stood so high above their time--which they evidently
represent with a certain transfiguration--that contemporaries were not
able to comprehend and enjoy them. The creative arts stood, at this
epoch, in strange contrast to so great an intellectual height; they were
far surpassed by the advance of poetry. Though certain textile and
ceramic manufactures (the making of wooden and bronze utensils, woven
stuffs, and pottery) must have been practised to some extent in Greece
proper, the better artistic productions are continually referred to as
imported from the civilized countries of Asia. Larger objects, and
notably buildings, were either exceedingly primitive, or, in the lack of
trained native ability, were erected and ornamented in foreign styles.
The Homeric epics know nothing of a columnar temple, nothing of artistic
images of the gods, nothing even of dwellings corresponding to the
importance of their princely heroes. Even at a much later time a
Spartan, accustomed to erect his own house with saw and axe alone, might
be astonished at the squarely hewn beams of a ceiling, which he
previously had seen formed only of round trunks, like those imitated
upon the Lycian block-house tombs.
It is of this exceeding simplicity that we must picture to ourselves the
palaces of the kings, one of which is so attractively described by the
singer of the Odyssey, in the account of the royal dwelling at Ithaca.
The entire establishment must have been similar to a grange--a wall
enclosing a number of buildings with the court before them. The rustic
parallel is clearly brought to mind by the description of this
farm-yard, where the compost-heap, surrounded by swine and geese, was
the bed of the old watch-dog, who, in Homer’s truly idyllic account,
alone recognizes his master, and, dying, wags his tail in greeting. From
this yard a gate led to an inner court, comparable to the peristyle of
later buildings, but without the ornament of columns, and in all
respects extremely primitive. Goats and beeves were driven in here
without further ado to be slaughtered. This adjoined upon one side the
chambers of the men, upon the other those of the women, so separated
that the tumultuous massacre of the suitors in the principal hall did
not disturb the slumber of Penelope, and only reached the ears of the
maids like distant moaning. Upon the third side, probably opposite the
entrance, was the hall of the men, a ceiled space, which must have been
of considerable extent, as the hundred and eight unwelcome guests could
here unite in the banquet and other amusements. Its ceiling, like that
of the armory and that of the royal sleeping-chamber, was supported by
upright beams of wood. We may imagine these similar to the shafts in the
Palace of Oinomaos at Elis, one of which, bound together with iron
hoops, was preserved as a relic in the time of Pausanias. The ceiling
beams of the hall were smoked and blackened by open fires and
torch-lights as in rustic dwellings. Of the walls there is no mention,
though the supposition is not improbable that the bright metal sheathing
of the palaces of Menelaos and Alkinoös existed here also. It would be
explained by the Phœnician overlaying of wood-work with beaten
bronze, or, to speak more correctly, with copper. The space could not
have been without openings for light and air. These are not directly
mentioned by the poet, but may be assumed, from the analogies offered by
other civilized nations of early antiquity, to have existed in the wall,
immediately under the ceiling. Here the interstices between the immense
horizontal beams, which rested upon the walls, were left open, and the
motive of the subsequent Doric metope resulted of itself. That the
timbers overhead were not sheathed with boards is evident from a Homeric
simile: Athene rose to the ceiling, and there sat, “like unto the
resting swallow;” that is to say, upon the cross-beams of the open
triangle formed by the roof-framing. Further evidence is offered by the
account of the hanging of Epicaste upon a ceiling beam, which must have
been exposed from all sides.
The tholos of the palace at Ithaca was an isolated circular structure,
before the court, and may perhaps be identified with the high thalamos
to which Telemachos descended. In this also lay gold and metal in
heaps; while shrines containing garments, and amphoras filled with oil
and wine, etc., stood around. Its double door, of careful workmanship,
agrees with the character of a treasury. If this identification of the
tholos and thalamos be accepted, no doubt can remain that we have here
to deal with a space similar to many yet remaining in Greece, generally
known under the name of treasure-houses. Examples exist at Orchomenos,
near Pharsalos, Amyclæ, Menidi, and in Mykenæ.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.--Plan and Section of the Tholos of Atreus.]
[Illustration: Fig. 122.--Restoration of the Tholos of Atreus. Portal.
(Clarke.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 123.--Fragments of an Engaged Column from the Tholos
of Atreus.]