been engrafted upon the Ionic style, which changed the character of the
whole, the more decidedly because introduced upon the most prominent
feature. This “Corinthian” innovation affected the capital alone, and
cannot be considered as an order, still less as a style, when compared
to the Doric and Ionic. It was a mere variety of the latter, which, in
all other respects than the capital, remained unaltered. The new form is
mentioned as an innovation of Callimachos, a sculptor celebrated for the
magnificent golden lamp and funnel made by him for the Erechtheion. The
name of that artificer may have given authority to the first
introduction of the Corinthian capital into Greek lands; but the
detailed account of Vitruvius in regard to its origin can hardly be
deemed more than a fable. He relates that a loving nurse had placed a
basket of toys, covered with a tile, upon the grave of a Corinthian
girl, and that in the spring-time an acanthos-plant, upon which it
stood, sent forth shoots covering the basket and curling beneath the
tile, thus providing a model directly imitated by Callimachos. The calyx
capitals of Egypt had long been known to the Greeks. In transferring
this floral motive across the Mediterranean, the decorative foliage of
papyrus and lotus had been given up, those unknown plants not being
adapted to Hellenic conventionalization. National art ever seeks the
subjects for floral ornament from the growths of its native soil. It was
on this account that oak-leaves, thistles, grape-leaves, and ivy were
employed in Gothic architecture; and, in a similar manner, the Greek
could make no more fortunate choice than the Hellenic thistle, the
acanthos, the forms of which even surpass in beauty the serrated outline
of the grape-leaf. The Corinthian capital suited well the prevalent
tendency to attenuate the shaft, and, at the same time, it furthered an
harmonious agreement between the capitals of columns and of pilasters.
Its forms presented a better solution of the problem of the capital, and
were more perfect in an abstract, if not in an artistic, point of view
than any of the preceding varieties. The two functions of the
transitional member--the projection, the oblique line between the
vertical and the horizontal, and the change from a circular to a
rectangular plan--had, in the Doric and Ionic capitals, been effected by
two separate bodies; in the Corinthian they were accomplished by one
alone. The kernel gave the projection, considerably steeper, according
to its height, than the Doric or Ionic echinos. The oblique line, convex
in the former style, is here slightly concave, although still
sufficiently vigorous in character to bear the light entablature. The
surrounding floral decoration effects the transition from the circle to
the rectangle; the upper leaves project towards the corners of the thin
abacus, under which they curl, giving to the capital, at some little
distance below its plinth, a section nearly square. A canonical form of
the Corinthian capital did not exist in progressive Hellenic art. This
does not appear until the order was reduced to a system by the
thought-saving and practical Romans. The completed type, so familiar in
the monuments of Italy, and used for centuries since in all parts of the
world, does not occur in Greece, the creation of the Corinthian order,
as such, being emphatically a work of the Romans. The Corinthian capital
was, in Hellenic architecture, merely a fanciful and ever-varied
decoration of foliage around a concave calyx. The before-mentioned
example from the Temple of Apollo in Bassæ shows how imperfect the
arrangement was at first. (_Fig._ 176.) The single row of leaves at its
base does not sufficiently ornament the kernel; the spirals upon the
four corners and the anthemions between them leave too much of its
surface uncovered. The thin abacus is neither provided with a profile
moulding, nor at all carved; upon its edge is painted a Doric meander;
its sides are curved in plan, advancing above the corner spirals so that
these might project farther from the calyx. A decided advance is shown
by the capital of an engaged column employed within the Temple of Apollo
Didymaios at Miletos (_Fig._ 177), which appears to be of more recent
date. A double wreath of acanthos-leaves surrounds the calyx, those
upon the corners being made sufficiently tall to support the spirals;
between them are anthemions. Fragments brought from the ruins of Knidos
to the British Museum are of similar form. These remains all resemble,
in a more or less marked degree, the ultimate typical development of the
Corinthian capital. Others, and among them some of a later period, lack
important constituent parts. A second variety, discovered in the
Didymaion, had only one wreath of leaves, and no connection with the
square abacus by corner spirals. The capitals of the so-called Tower of
the Winds in Athens (_Fig._ 178) resemble them. Behind the
acanthos-leaves rises a simple row of lanceolate reeds, which follows
the outline of the calyx. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, built
more than a century previous, in 334 B.C., presents a beautiful instance
of a fanciful Corinthian capital. Between the shaft and the calyx there
is a preparatory necking of small leaves, similar to those which existed
upon the example within the temple at Bassæ. Above the low acanthos
wreath rises a rich garland of foliage and flowers, with a central
anthemion rising to the top of the abacus. The heavy corner volutes
cannot compensate for the excessive contraction of the calyx, which
takes away from the unity and force of the main transitional curve.
The Corinthian capital appears to have attained the form under which it
is now known in the middle of the second century B.C. The Temple of
Olympian Zeus in Athens received its peripteros of Corinthian columns
under Antiochos Epiphanes, 176-164 B.C.; though its crepidoma, probably
intended for an edifice of the Doric style, had been prepared as early
as the time of Peisistratos. The architectural direction of the building
had been intrusted to a Roman, Cossutius, and it was, in fact, destined
to provide material for Rome itself, as, soon after its completion, the
columns were carried away by Sulla and employed in the restoration of
the temple upon the Roman Capitol, shortly before destroyed by fire. The
capitals thus removed appear to have been regarded as models, and to
have exercised a great influence upon the development of the Corinthian
order, as cultivated, almost exclusively, by the Romans. The calyx
decorated with acanthos foliage corresponded to the taste of the
imperial epoch for architectural magnificence, and its employment was
not embarrassed by the difficulties upon the corners of peripteral
temples which have been discussed in the consideration of the Doric
frieze and the Ionic capital. The floral decoration soon extended to the
entablature, increasing the number and dimensions of its minor members.
The most striking result was the transformation of the dentils into the
richly carved consoles of doubly spiral profile, which were imitated
from the parotides of the Ionic portal coronation, but were placed
horizontally instead of vertically. The use of both dentils and consoles
is a barbaric duplication, characteristic of the tasteless architectural
magnificence of the Roman decline. The so-called Corinthian base is no
real characteristic of the order, being only a combination of Ionic and
Attic forms, with a double scotia between the two tores.
Hellenic architecture has thus far been considered exclusively in its
relations to sacred edifices, because the art of building, among nations
whose civilization has been influenced by religious conceptions, is
always best exemplified by temples. But it was natural that Doric and
Ionic forms should be employed, though in a less conventional manner,
for all the buildings of Greece, being richly elaborated in monumental
works, and more or less simplified and adapted in structures intended
for private or public usefulness, as economy and civic destination alike
forced restrictions upon the disposition and decoration of the design.
The sacred nature of monumental tombs allied them most nearly to the
temples. The conical tumulus had preceded the Hellenic peripteros, and
when that helpless form was entirely given up, after the perfection of
the columnar temple, the cinerary urn remained as a leading motive,
which excluded the lengthened plan of the peripteral temple and rather
tended to increase the height of the monument--otherwise a subordinate
dimension. Graves of less importance were marked by columns, upright
blocks of stone with an ornamental cap, or by steles, the angular
termination of which often betrayed the influence of the temple gable,
while the shaft retained the nature of the pier. More prominent
sepulchres consisted of ranges of columns upon a cube, which, containing
a sarcophagus, took the place of the cylinder beneath the conical
tumulus. As the columns had, in general, only a decorative importance,
it was not necessary to construct a cella in connection with them. This
was only added when a chapel was required for funeral worship, or when,
as in mausoleums of great dimensions, inner walls were needed to provide
a bearing for the ceiling beams. The termination of these structures was
characteristic. The sacred gable was generally avoided, in just
appreciation of its significance, and the form of the tumulus was
retained, so far as the rectangular plan would permit, a pyramidal
superstructure taking the place of the cone.
[Illustration: Fig. 179.--Tomb at Mylassa.]
That this pyramid was constructed in steps is evident from a small tomb
without a cella at Mylassa (_Fig._ 179), and from that magnificent
monument, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos, one of the wonders of the
antique world. (_Fig._ 180.) The latter was erected by Artemisia, the
widow and successor of King Mausolos, who called to her assistance the
most celebrated architects of the time, Satyros and Pythios; as well as
the greatest sculptors, Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares, and Timotheos. It is
known by the extensive English excavations of 1856 and 1857. Although
the opinions of prominent authorities differ greatly as to its design,
it is yet certain that upon the massive oblong foundation, 30 m. long,
24 m. broad, and over 15 m. high, which contained the small sepulchral
chamber, there stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns, and
terminated by a stepped pyramid, the truncated apex of which bore a
colossal marble quadriga, with the statues of the queen and of a female
charioteer, the whole attaining a height of 42 m. The works of
sculpture--the figures which stood in the intercolumniations and the
reliefs upon the wall of the cella, and perhaps also upon the
substructure--will be considered in the next section. It is possible
that the destination of the edifice was not that usually attributed to
it, Urlichs having argued that it was a heroön, and a memorial of
victory.
[Illustration: Fig. 180.--Mausoleum of Halicarnassos.]
The Monument of the Nereides at Xanthos (_Fig._ 181) resembled the
Mausoleum in many respects. It was a peristyle of sixteen Ionic columns
elevated upon a massive foundation. Statues stood in its
intercolumniations, while the zophoros and substructure were carved with
reliefs. A gabled roof seems, however, to have indicated the sacred
character of the edifice. The cella and the surrounding columns of this
class of buildings were united in various manners, a remarkable example
of a pseudo-peripteros being offered by the so-called Tomb of Theron in
Acragas in Sicily. In other instances three stories resulted from a
duplication of the foundations beneath the peripteros, as in the alleged
Tomb of Mikipsas at Constantina, the ancient Cirta in Numidia. This
multiplication was particularly frequent in the Roman period. The tomb
of this nature at Saint-Remi, in Southern France, the ancient Glanum,
built during the reign of Augustus, is one of the most beautiful ruins
known.
[Illustration: Fig. 181.--Monument of the Nereides at Xanthos.]
Among the choragic monuments of Greece, the most interesting is that
erected by Lysicrates in commemoration of the victory gained by a chorus
of boys of the Phyle Acamantis led by him. It served as a pedestal for
the prize bestowed, a tripod, and was a pseudo-monopteros of small
dimensions and beautiful details. Engaged columns with Corinthian
capitals supported a monolithic ceiling, the floral termination of which
originally served as a base for the tripod. The so-called Tower of the
Winds was a clepsydra, built by Andronicos Kyrrhestes, and was also
furnished outside with dials and a weathercock. It is especially
interesting on account of the peculiar forms of its Corinthian capitals.
(_Fig._ 178.)
[Illustration: Fig. 182.--Stoa Diple at Thoricos.]
The most extensive employment of columns in civic architecture was in
the porticos, the stoas, which surrounded the market-places and extended
through many streets, being connected with baths, gymnasions,
palaestras, stadia, and hippodromes, and even appearing as independent
buildings. The market-place, the agora, was, in ancient cities, commonly
of an irregular form; when possible it was surrounded by colonnades. In
more recent settlements care was taken to provide a rectangular space
for the purpose, in which double porticos of considerable extent were
built for shelter in bad weather. In view of the effeminacy of the
Ionians, it is easy to credit the account that this race first provided
the chief places in towns with the protection of stoas, introducing this
custom in Greece, where it soon became general. Extended colonnades were
frequently connected with them, traversing the principal streets. The
independent stoas, which were arranged in the greatest variety of
combinations, are of particular interest. The Stoa Poikile (the
many-colored), upon the market-place of Athens, was built by Peisianax,
the brother-in-law of Cimon, this latter causing the walls to be
decorated by Polygnotos and his assistants--upon one wing with scenes
from the battle of Marathon, upon the other from that of Oinoe, while
the long background of the principal hall was similarly treated. Upon
the market-places the porticos were often increased in width by a second
row of columns, and in later times a dividing-wall was frequently placed
between these ranges as a spina. According to Pausanias, this was the
case with the so-called Kerkyraion Hall of Elis. The form of a _stoa
diple_, or double colonnade, was more customary; in it the central wall
was replaced by a third range of columns, as the case appears to have
been at Thoricos (_Fig._ 182), where the entrance was provided in the
middle of the longer sides by wider intercolumniations. The enlargement
was carried still farther by making the colonnade of three aisles, with
two inner ranges of columns, as in the Stoa of the Hellanodikæ: covered
spaces of great breadth, open upon all sides, and admirably adapted to
their purpose, were thus provided. It is natural to assume that the
great grain market of the Piraios was such an extended stoa, as was
likewise the so-called Basilica of Pæstum, a structure of three aisles,
lacking exterior enclosure. The latter building is assuredly misnamed,
the nature of a basilica being dependent upon outer walls. The prototype
of the Roman and Christian basilicas is rather to be sought in the law
courts of the Archon Basileus in Athens, a combination of enclosed halls
and chambers, which, by their future development, received an historical
and practical importance exceeding that of any other work of Hellenic
architecture, not excepting the temples, which became useless with the
extinction of Hellenic religious conceptions. The columns of stoas were
multiplied above, as well as beside, one another, analogous to the
galleries over the side aisles of the larger temples. This appears to
have been the case upon the so-called Persian Hall at Sparta, where,
instead of upper shafts, there were piers decorated with the statues of
Persians, comparable to the corresponding architectural members of the
Incantada at Thessalonica, though the figures of gods and heroes were,
in the latter instance, attached to the supports in three-quarter
relief, while the statues at Sparta appear to have been in the full
round. It is evident from the Roman basilicas, to be considered in
another section, that the employment of galleries was general in the
enclosed stoas of Greece.
[Illustration: Fig. 183.--Stadion at Messene.]
[Illustration: Fig. 184.--Hippodrome at Olympia.]
Chief among the public buildings of Hellas, after the agoras and stoas,
were the arrangements for the festive games. These were divided into two
classes: bodily exercises and scenic representations. The former were
the more important, forming a prominent part in the education of every
Greek citizen. Palaistras and gymnasia were provided for the
manœuvres, stadia and hippodromes for the public contests and races.
In primitive times the palaistras had no architectural character; a
meadow and a sandy reach, generally upon the bank of a brook and shaded
by trees, sufficed as a training-ground. The private palaistras seem
never to have exceeded this simplicity; but the great importance of
drill for the military power of the State early demanded the erection of
suitable structures, and there resulted the gymnasion, a combination of
covered chambers and halls with open courts, which provided separate and
fitting spaces for the different gymnastic exercises and for the baths,
as well as for the higher intellectual entertainments of the
philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets. These structures were probably
varied in character until the most suitable arrangement was decided by
experience. It seems early to have become customary to surround a
rectangular space by colonnades, to which were added extensive wings,
semicircular exedras, and the like, for scientific and æsthetic
instruction. Upon one side were grouped a number of chambers known as
the Ephebeion, Apodyterion, Elaiothesion, Conisterion, Corykeion,
Laconicon, Lutron, etc., serving the youths as places of assemblage,
rooms for dressing and anointing, hot and cold baths, etc. Opposite to
them extended the stadion, while, within the enclosure, promenades
between groups of trees and beds of flowers alternated with grounds for
shorter races, quoit-throwing, wrestling, and other contests. Some
examples, like those of Ephesos, Hierapolis, and Alexandria, still
display in their ruins the chief features of this arrangement, though
more or less influenced by the customs of imperial Rome, where the baths
had been in great measure separated from the gymnasia. The spirit of
emulation was excited by the publicity of these institutions, and
increased by the periodical festive competitions to a height far
exceeding our modern conceptions. A wreath of laurel or olive leaves, a
small quantity of oil, a tripod, or other similar rewards of victory,
such as were given as prizes in the games of Olympia, Delphi, Nemea,
Corinth, and Athens, conferred almost divine honor, even the years being
known by the name of the temporary hero of Olympia. The five chief
divisions of the gymnastic exercises, the pentathlon--running, jumping,
wrestling, boxing, and the throwing of the discos--were practised in the
stadion, a space from 180 m. to 300 m. long, usually chosen close to the
side of a hill, which, more or less prepared by terracing and grading,
provided seats for spectators. If a narrow valley were near at hand, as
in the case of the Athenian stadion of the suburb Agrae, the opposite
slopes were thus occupied. The seats near the goal were naturally the
more desirable, and it was here that the architectural features were
concentrated, terraces being carried in a semicircle around this centre.
Examples are not wanting, as in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, where both
ends were thus terminated, and the space for spectators carried around
the entire race-course, thus pointing the way to a building of this
form, the amphitheatre, which was to become the delight of the Roman
world. The stadion of Messene (_Fig._ 183) shows how natural
inclinations were followed and utilized, though at the expense of a
symmetrical disposition; yet this example dates from the later
extravagant period of Greek history, and is far removed from the
patriarchal simplicity of primitive times. The stadion did not suffice
for the races of horses and chariots which had been favorites with the
Greeks since the Trojan war. In such early ages, any goal chosen in the
plain was sufficient, like the oak-trunk mentioned by Homer; but it
could not have been long before the need was manifest of a sloping stand
for the spectators and an enclosure for the contestants, and thus the
hippodrome, the race-course, was developed similarly to the smaller
stadion. The most celebrated, and perhaps the oldest, hippodrome of
Greece, that of Olympia, is described by Pausanias. The right side, the
longer, consisted of an artificial embankment of earth, while the slope
of a hill was employed for the left; at the entrance was a colonnade
devoted to the preparations of the charioteers. The starting-point, the
aphesis, had, according to the expression of Pausanias, a form like the
prow of a vessel--that is, advanced in a pointed form--to facilitate the
start. The plan here given, _Fig._ 184, is altered from Visconti’s
restoration by these gates being opened towards the first turning-point,
the _taraxippos_, or terror of the horses.
[Illustration: Fig. 185.--Scheme of the Greek Theatre, according to
Vitruvius.]
[Illustration: Fig. 186.--Restored View of the Theatre of Segesta.]
The theatres, as enclosures for musical and scenic representations,
offered greater scope for architectural development. When possible, the
auditorium was in a situation where a natural semicircular inclination
served instead of the immense foundations which would otherwise have
been necessary for the elevated seats; the stage and surrounding
buildings were, however, free-standing works of architecture. The
arrangement of the Greek theatre is described by Vitruvius: three
squares were inscribed in a circle, thus forming a twelve-pointed star
(_Fig._ 185); one of the sides, _a b_, served as the line of the front
foundation of the stage. This platform, the logeion, was closed at the
rear by a wall, treated like a façade, and forming a background, the
skene; its position being decided by the tangent _c d_, parallel to the
front side. The remainder of the circle, the orchestra, was reserved for
the evolutions of the chorus and for the stand of the musicians, the
thymele; it was not until the development of the Roman theatre that
spectators were admitted to this enclosure. Its extent was slightly
increased by drawing the outline from the diameter, _e f_, to the stage
with a doubled radius. Around seven twelfths of the original circle was
constructed the concentrical auditorium of ascending seats, divided by a
platform at half-height, the diazoma, into two parts, and accessible by
radial passages. The statement of Vitruvius, who, as usual, substitutes
a thought-saving canon for the living individuality of Hellenic art, is
not borne out by the numerous remains of Greek theatres. The orchestra
and auditorium exceed the semicircle in every instance where local
conformations have not rendered this impossible; but they either do
this by elongating the arc with tangents, as in the theatres of Segesta
(_Fig._ 186), Syracuse, Tyndaris, and Tauromenion, or by continuing the
circumference of the original circle without deviation, as in those of
Athens, Epidauros, Megalopolis, Delos, Melos, Cnidos, Laodikeia, Side,
Myra, Telmissos, Patara, Aizanis, etc. Among all known Greek theatres
only two, those at Mantinea and Alabanda, are situated in the plain and
entirely built of masonry; the others, contrary to Roman custom, utilize
natural inclinations, as before explained. The seats were either cut in
the native rock, or were walled and reveted with slabs of marble; when
the slope was of earth, important foundations were undertaken.
The arrangements of odeions, or partially covered theatres for festive
musical representations, appear to have preceded, and in some degree
influenced, the architecture of the theatres. The oldest known example
of these structures is the Skias in Sparta, a circular building provided
with a pitched roof, which was probably built in accordance with forms
customary in Asia Minor, as a Samian architect (Theodoros, the son of
Telecles) was called from Samos to superintend its erection. The odeion
upon the Ilissos near Athens appears to have been of similar
disposition, and, like the former, constructed chiefly of wood.