institute a presentee to a benefice if the tribunal constituted under
that act decides that there is no valid ground for refusing institution
and the bishop of the diocese notwithstanding fails to institute him.
After the College of Advocates was incorporated and had established
itself in Doctors' Commons, the archbishop's court of appeal, as well as
his prerogative court, were usually held in the hall of the College of
Advocates, but after the destruction of the buildings of the college,
the court of appeal held its sittings, for the most part, in Westminster
Hall. For many years past there has been but little business in the
Arches court, mainly owing to the unwillingness of a large number of the
clergy to recognize the jurisdiction of what they deny to be any longer
a spiritual court, and the consistent use by the bishops of their right
of veto in the case of prosecutions under the Public Worship Regulation
Act. On the rare occasions when a sitting of the court is necessary, it
is held in the library of Lambeth Palace, or at the Church House,
Westminster.
ARCHESTRATUS, of Syracuse or Gela, a Greek poet, who flourished about
330 B.C. After travelling extensively in search of foreign delicacies
for the table, he embodied the result in a humorous poem called [Greek:
Hedupatheta], afterwards freely translated by Ennius under the title
_Heduphagetica_. About 300 lines of this gastronomical poem are
preserved in Athenaeus. The writer, who has been styled the Hesiod or
Theognis of gluttons, parodies the style of the old gnomic poets; chief
attention is paid to details concerning fish.
Ribbeck, _Archestrati Reliquiae_ (1877); Brandt, _Corpusculum Poesis
Epicae Graecae ludibundae_, i. 1888; Schmid, _De Archestrati Gelensis
Fragmentis_ (1896).
ARCHIAC, ETIENNE JULES ADOLPHE DESMIER DE SAINT SIMON, VICOMTE D'
(1802-1868), French geologist and palaeontologist, was born at Reims on
the 24th of September 1802. He was educated in the Military School of St
Cyr, and served for nine years as a cavalry officer until 1830, when he
retired from the service. Prior to this he had published an historical
romance; but now geology came to occupy his chief attention. In his
earlier scientific works, which date from 1835, he described the
Tertiary and Cretaceous formations of France, Belgium and England, and
dealt especially with the distribution of fossils geographically and in
sequence. Later on he investigated the Carboniferous, Devonian and
Silurian formations. His great work, _Histoire des progres de la
geologie_, 1834-1859, was published in 8 volumes at Paris (1847-1860).
In 1853 the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society was awarded to
him. In the same year, with Jules Haime (1824-1856), he published a
monograph on the Nummulitic formation of India. In 1857 he was elected a
member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1861 he was appointed
professor of palaeontology in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
Of later works his _Paleontologie stratigraphique_, in 3 vols.
(1864-1865); his _Geologie et paleontologie_ (1866); and his
palaeontological contributions to de Tchihatcheff's _Asie mineure_
(1866), may be specially mentioned.
He died on the 24th of December 1868.
See _Notice sur les travaux scientifiques du vicomte d'Archiac_, par
A. Gaudry (Meulan, 1874); _Extrait du Bull. Soc. Geol. de France_,
ser. 3, t. ii. p. 230 (1874).
ARCHIAS, AULUS LICINIUS, Greek poet, was born at Antioch in Syria 120
B.C. In 102, his reputation having been already established, especially
as an improvisatore, he came to Rome, where he was well received amongst
the highest and most influential families. His chief patron was
Lucullus, whose gentile name he assumed. In 93 he visited Sicily with
his patron, on which occasion he received the citizenship of Heracleia,
one of the federate towns, and indirectly, by the provisions of the lex
Plautia Papiria, that of Rome. In 61 he was accused by a certain Gratius
of having assumed the citizenship illegally; and Cicero successfully
defended him in his speech _Pro Archia_. This speech, which furnishes
nearly all the information concerning Archias, states that he had
celebrated the deeds of Marius and Lucullus in the Cimbrian and
Mithradatic wars, and that he was engaged upon a poem of which the
events of Cicero's consulship formed the subject. The Greek Anthology
contains thirty-five epigrams under the name of Archias, but it is
doubtful how many of these (if any) are the work of the poet of Antioch.
Cicero, _Pro Archia_; T. Reinach, _De Archia Poeta_ (1890).
ARCHIDAMUS, the name of five kings of Sparta, of the Eurypontid house.
1. The son and successor of Anaxidamus. His reign, which began soon
after the close of the second Messenian War, is said to have been quiet
and uneventful (Pausanias iii. 7. 6).
2. The son of Zeuxidamus, reigned 476-427 B.C. (but see LEOTYCHIDES). He
succeeded his grandfather Leotychides upon the banishment of the latter,
his father having already died. His coolness and presence of mind are
said to have saved the Spartan state from destruction on the occasion of
the great earthquake of 464 (Diodorus xi. 63; Plutarch, _Cimon_, 16),
but this story must be regarded as at least doubtful. He was a friend of
Pericles and a man of prudence and moderation. During the negotiations
which preceded the Peloponnesian War he did his best to prevent, or at
least to postpone, the inevitable struggle, but was overruled by the war
party. He invaded Attica at the head of the Peloponnesian forces in the
summers of 431, 430 and 428, and in 429 conducted operations against
Plataea. He died probably in 427, certainly before the summer of 426,
when we find his son Agis on the throne.
Herod, vi. 71; Thuc. i. 79-iii. 1; Plut. _Pericles_, 29. 33; Diodorus
xi. 48-xii. 52.
3. The son and successor of Agesilaus II., reigned 360-338 B.C. During
his father's later years he proved himself a brave and capable officer.
In 371 he led the relief force which was sent to aid the survivors of
the battle of Leuctra. Four years later he captured Caryae, ravaged the
territory of the Parrhasii and defeated the Arcadians, Argives and
Messenians in the "tearless battle," so called because the victory did
not cost the Spartans a single life. In 364, however, he sustained a
severe reverse in attempting to relieve a besieged Spartan garrison at
Cromnus in south-western Arcadia. He showed great heroism in the defence
of Sparta against Epaminondas immediately before the battle of Mantineia
(362). He supported the Phocians during the Sacred War (355-346), moved,
no doubt, largely by the hatred of Thebes which he had inherited from
his father; he also led the Spartan forces in the conflicts with the
Thebans and their allies which arose out of the Spartan attempt to break
up the city of Megalopolis. Finally he was sent with a mercenary army to
Italy to protect the Tarentines against the attacks of Lucanians or
Messapians; he fell together with the greater part of his force at
Mandonion[1] on the same day as that on which the battle of Chaeronea
was fought.
Xen. _Hell._ v. 4, vi. 4, vii. 1. 4, 5; Plut. _Agis_, 3, _Camillus_,
19, _Agesilaus._ 25, 33, 34, 40; Pausanias iii. 10, vi. 4; Diodorus
xv. 54, 72, xvi. 24, 39, 59, 62, 88.
4. The son of Eudamidas I., grandson of Archidamus III. The dates of his
accession and death are unknown. In 294 B.C. he was defeated at
Mantineia by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who invaded Laconia, gained a second
victory close to Sparta, and was on the point of taking the city itself
when he was called away by the news of the successes of Lysimachus and
Ptolemy in Asia Minor and Cyprus.
Plut. _Agis_, 3, _Demetrius_, 35; Pausanias, i. 13. 6, vii. 8. 5;
Niese, _Gesch. der griech. u. makedon. Slaalen_, i. 363.
5. The son of Eudamidas II., grandson of Archidamus IV., brother of Agis
IV. On his brother's murder he fled to Messenia (241 B.C.). In 227 he
was recalled by Cleomenes III., who was then reigning without a
colleague, but shortly after his return he was assassinated. Polybius
accuses Cleomenes of the murder, but Plutarch is probably right in
saying that it was the work of those who had caused the death of Agis,
and feared his brother's vengeance.
Plutarch, _Cleomenes_, i. 5; Polybius v. 37, viii. I; Niese, _op.
cit._ ii. 304, 311. (M. N. T.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] So Plut. _Agis_, 3 (all MSS.). Following Cellarius, some
authorities read Manduria or Mandyrium.
ARCHIL (a corruption of "orchil," Ital. _oricello_, the origin of which
is unknown), a purple dye obtained from various species of lichens.
Archil can be extracted from many species of the genera _Roccella_,
_Lecanora_, _Umbilicaria_, _Parmelia_ and others, but in practice two
species of _Roccella_--_R. tinctoria_ and _R. fuciformis_--are almost
exclusively used. These, under the name of "orchella weed" or "dyer's
moss," are obtained from Angola, on the west coast of Africa, where the
most valuable kinds are gathered; from Cape Verde Islands; from Lima, on
the west coast of South America; and from the Malabar coast of India.
The colouring properties of the lichens do not exist in them ready
formed, but are developed by the treatment to which they are subjected.
A small proportion of a colourless, crystalline principle, termed
orcinol (a dioxytoluene), is found in some, and in all a series of acid
substances, erythric, lecanoric acids, &c. Orcinol in presence of oxygen
and ammonia takes up nitrogen and becomes changed into a purple
substance, orceine (C7H7NO3), which is essentially the basis of all
lichen dyes. Two other colouring-matters, azoerythin and erythroleinic
acid, are sometimes present. Archil is prepared for the dyer's use in
the form of a "liquor" (archil) and a "paste" (persis), and the latter,
when dried and finely powdered, forms the "cudbear" of commerce, a dye
formerly manufactured in Scotland from a native lichen, _Lecanora
tartarea_. The manufacturing process consists in washing the weeds,
which are then ground up with water to a thick paste. If archil paste is
to be made this paste is mixed with a strong ammoniacal solution, and
agitated in an iron cylinder heated by steam to about 140 deg. F. till
the desired shade is developed--a process which occupies several days.
In the preparation of archil liquor the principles which yield the dye
are separated from the ligneous tissue of the lichens, agitated with a
hot ammoniacal solution, and exposed to the action of air. When
potassium or sodium carbonate is added, a blue dye known as litmus, much
used as an "indicator," is produced. French purple or lime lake is a
lichen dye prepared by a modification of the archil process, and is a
more brilliant and durable colour than the other. The dyeing of worsted
and home-spun cloth with lichen dyes was formerly a very common domestic
employment in Scotland; and to this day, in some of the outer islands,
worsted continues to be dyed with "crottle," the name given to the
lichens employed.
ARCHILOCHUS, Greek lyric poet and writer of lampoons, was born at Paros,
one of the Cyclades islands. The date of his birth is uncertain, but he
probably flourished about 650 B.C.; according to some, about forty years
earlier but certainly not before the reign of Gyges (687-652), whom he
mentions in a well-known fragment. His father, Telesicles, who was of
noble family, had conducted a colony to Thasos, in obedience to the
command of the Delphic oracle. To this island Archilochus himself, hard
pressed by poverty, afterwards removed. Another reason for leaving his
native place was personal disappointment and indignation at the
treatment he had received from Lycambes, a citizen of Paros, who had
promised him his daughter Neobule in marriage, but had afterwards
withdrawn his consent. Archilochus, taking advantage of the licence
allowed at the feasts of Demeter, poured out his wounded feelings in
unmerciful satire. He accused Lycambes of perjury, and his daughters of
leading the most abandoned lives. Such was the effect produced by his
verses, that Lycambes and his daughters are said to have hanged
themselves. At Thasos the poet passed some unhappy years; his hopes of
wealth were disappointed; according to him, Thasos was the meeting-place
of the calamities of all Hellas. The inhabitants were frequently
involved in quarrels with their neighbours, and in a war against the
Saians--a Thracian tribe--he threw away his shield and fled from the
field of battle. He does not seem to have felt the disgrace very keenly,
for, like Alcaeus and Horace, he commemorates the event in a fragment in
which he congratulates himself on having saved his life, and says he can
easily procure another shield. After leaving Thasos, he is said to have
visited Sparta, but to have been at once banished from that city on
account of his cowardice and the licentious character of his works
(Valerius Maximus vi. 3, _externa_ 1). He next visited Siris, in lower
Italy, a city of which he speaks very favourably. He then returned to
his native place, and was slain in a battle against the Naxians by one
Calondas or Corax, who was cursed by the oracle for having slain a
servant of the Muses.
The writings of Archilochus consisted of elegies, hymns--one of which
used to be sung by the victors in the Olympic games (Pindar, _Olympia_,
ix. i)--and of poems in the iambic and trochaic measures. To him
certainly we owe the invention of iambic poetry and its application to
the purposes of satire. The only previous measures in Greek poetry had
been the epic hexameter, and its offshoot the elegiac metre; but the
slow measured structure of hexameter verse was utterly unsuited to
express the quick, light motions of satire. Archilochus made use of the
iambus and the trochee, and organized them into the two forms of metre
known as the iambic trimeter and the trochaic tetrameter. The trochaic
metre he generally used for subjects of a serious nature; the iambic for
satires. He was also the first to make use of the arrangement of verses
called the epode. Horace in his metres to a great extent follows
Archilochus (_Epistles_, i. 19. 23-35). All ancient authorities unite in
praising the poems of Archilochus, in terms which appear exaggerated
(Longinus xiii. 3; Dio Chrysostom, _Orationes_, xxxiii.; Quintilian x.
i. 60; Cicero, _Orator_, i.). His verses seem certainly to have
possessed strength, flexibility, nervous vigour, and, beyond everything
else, impetuous vehemence and energy. Horace (_Ars Poetica_, 79) speaks
of the "rage" of Archilochus, and Hadrian calls his verses "raging
iambics." By his countrymen he was reverenced as the equal of Homer, and
statues of these two poets were dedicated on the same day.
His poems were written in the old Ionic dialect. Fragments in Bergk,
_Poetae Lyrici Graeci_; Liebel, _Archilochi Reliquiae_ (1818); A.
Hauvette-Besnault, _Archiloque, sa vie et ses poesies_ (1905).
ARCHIMANDRITE (from Gr. [Greek: archon], a ruler, and [Greek: mandra], a
fold or monastery), a title in the Greek Church applied to a superior
abbot, who has the supervision of several abbots and monasteries, or to
the abbot of some specially great and important monastery, the title for
an ordinary abbot being hegumenos. The title occurs for the first time
in a letter to Epiphanius, prefixed to his _Panarium_ (c. 375), but the
_Lausiac History_ of Palladius may be evidence that it was in common use
in the 4th century as applied to Pachomius (q.v.). In Russia the bishops
are commonly selected from the archimandrites. The word occurs in the
_Regula Columbani_ (c. 7), and du Cange gives a few other cases of its
use in Latin documents, but it never came into vogue in the West. Owing
to intercourse with Greek and Slavonic Christianity, the title is
sometimes to be met with in southern Italy and Sicily, and in Hungary
and Poland.
See the article in the _Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne et de
liturgie_.
ARCHIMEDES (c. 287-212 B.C.), Greek mathematician and inventor, was born
at Syracuse, in Sicily. He was the son of Pheidias, an astronomer, and
was on intimate terms with, if not related to, Hiero, king of Syracuse,
and Gelo his son. He studied at Alexandria and doubtless met there Conon
of Samos, whom he admired as a mathematician and cherished as a friend,
and to whom he was in the habit of communicating his discoveries before
publication. On his return to his native city he devoted himself to
mathematical research. He himself set no value on the ingenious
mechanical contrivances which made him famous, regarding them as beneath
the dignity of pure science and even declining to leave any written
record of them except in the case of the [Greek: sphairopoiia]
(_Sphere-making_), as to which see below. As, however, these machines
impressed the popular imagination, they naturally figure largely in the
traditions about him. Thus he devised for Hiero engines of war which
almost terrified the Romans, and which protracted the siege of Syracuse
for three years. There is a story that he constructed a burning mirror
which set the Roman ships on fire when they were within a bowshot of the
wall. This has been discredited because it is not mentioned by Polybius,
Livy or Plutarch; but it is probable that Archimedes had constructed
some such burning instrument, though the connexion of it with the
destruction of the Roman fleet is more than doubtful. More important, as
being doubtless connected with the discovery of the principle in
hydrostatics which bears his name and the foundation by him of that
whole science, is the story of Hiero's reference to him of the question
whether a crown made for him and purporting to be of gold, did not
actually contain a proportion of silver. According to one story,
Archimedes was puzzled till one day, as he was stepping into a bath and
observed the water running over, it occurred to him that the excess of
bulk occasioned by the introduction of alloy could be measured by
putting the crown and an equal weight of gold separately into a vessel
filled with water, and observing the difference of overflow. He was so
overjoyed when this happy thought struck him that he ran home without
his clothes, shouting [Greek: euraeka, euraeka], "I have found it, I
have found it." Similarly his pioneer work in mechanics is illustrated
by the story of his having said [Greek: dos moi pon sto kai kino taen
gaen] (or as another version has it, in his dialect, [Greek: pa bo kai
kino tan gan]), "Give me a place to stand and I (will) move the earth."
Hiero asked him to give an illustration of his contention that a very
great weight could be moved by a very small force. He is said to have
fixed on a large and fully laden ship and to have used a mechanical
device by which Hiero was enabled to move it by himself: but accounts
differ as to the particular mechanical powers employed. The water-screw
which he invented (see below) was probably devised in Egypt for the
purpose of irrigating fields.
Archimedes died at the capture of Syracuse by Marcellus, 212 B.C. In the
general massacre which followed the fall of the city, Archimedes, while
engaged in drawing a mathematical figure on the sand, was run through
the body by a Roman soldier. No blame attaches to the Roman general,
Marcellus, since he had given orders to his men to spare the house and
person of the sage; and in the midst of his triumph he lamented the
death of so illustrious a person, directed an honourable burial to be
given him, and befriended his surviving relatives. In accordance with
the expressed desire of the philosopher, his tomb was marked by the
figure of a sphere inscribed in a cylinder, the discovery of the
relation between the volumes of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder
being regarded by him as his most valuable achievement. When Cicero was
quaestor in Sicily (75 B.C.), he found the tomb of Archimedes, near the
Agrigentine gate, overgrown with thorns and briers. "Thus," says Cicero
(_Tusc. Disp._, v. c. 23, S 64), "would this most famous and once most
learned city of Greece have remained a stranger to the tomb of one of
its most ingenious citizens, had it not been discovered by a man of
Arpinum."
_Works._--The range and importance of the scientific labours of
Archimedes will be best understood from a brief account of those
writings which have come down to us; and it need only be added that
his greatest work was in geometry, where he so extended the method of
_exhaustion_ as originated by Eudoxus, and followed by Euclid, that it
became in his hands, though purely geometrical in form, actually
equivalent in several cases to _integration_, as expounded in the
first chapters of our text-books on the integral calculus. This remark
applies to the finding of the area of a parabolic segment (mechanical
solution) and of a spiral, the surface and volume of a sphere and of a
segment thereof, and the volume of any segments of the solids of
revolution of the second degree.
The extant treatises are as follows:--
(1) _On the Sphere and Cylinder_ (Greek: Peri sphairas kai
kylindron]). This treatise is in two books, dedicated to Dositheus,
and deals with the dimensions of spheres, cones, "solid rhombi" and
cylinders, all demonstrated in a strictly geometrical method. The
first book contains forty-four propositions, and those in which the
most important results are finally obtained are: 13 (surface of right
cylinder), 14, 15 (surface of right cone), 33 (surface of sphere), 34
(volume of sphere and its relation to that of circumscribing
cylinder), 42, 43 (surface of segment of sphere), 44 (volume of sector
of sphere). The second book is in nine propositions, eight of which
deal with segments of spheres and include the problems of cutting a
given sphere by a plane so that (a) the surfaces, (b) the volumes,
of the segments are in a given ratio (Props. 3, 4), and of
constructing a segment of a sphere similar to one given segment and
having (a) its volume, (b) its surface, equal to that of another
(5, 6).
(2) _The Measurement of the Circle_ ([Greek: Kuklou metraesis]) is a
short book of three propositions, the main result being obtained in
Prop. 2, which shows that the circumference of a circle is less than
3-1/7 and greater than 3-10/71 times its diameter. Inscribing in and
circumscribing about a circle two polygons, each of ninety-six sides,
and assuming that the perimeter of the circle lay between those of the
polygons, he obtained the limits he has assigned by sheer calculation,
starting from two close approximations to the value of [root]3, which
he assumes as known (265/153 < [root]3 < 1351/780).
(3) _On Conoids and Spheroids_ ([Greek: Peri konoeideon kai
sphairoeideon]) is a treatise in thirty-two propositions, on the
solids generated by the revolution of the conic sections about their
axes, the main results being the comparisons of the volume of any
segment cut off by a plane with that of a cone having the same base
and axis (Props. 21, 22 for the paraboloid, 25, 26 for the
hyperboloid, and 27-32 for the spheroid).
(4) _On Spirals_ ([Greek: Peri helikon]) is a book of twenty-eight
propositions. Propositions 1-11 are preliminary, 13-20 contain
tangential properties of the curve now known as the spiral of
Archimedes, and 21-28 show how to express the area included between
any portion of the curve and the radii vectores to its extremities.
(5) _On the Equilibrium of Planes or Centres of Gravity of Planes_
([Greek: Peri hepipedon isorropion ae kentra baron hepipedon]). This
consists of two books, and may be called the foundation of theoretical
mechanics, for the previous contributions of Aristotle were
comparatively vague and unscientific. In the first book there are
fifteen propositions, with seven postulates; and demonstrations are
given, much the same as those still employed, of the centres of
gravity (1) of any two weights, (2) of any parallelogram, (3) of any
triangle, (4) of any trapezium. The second book in ten propositions is
devoted to the finding the centres of gravity (1) of a parabolic
segment, (2) of the area included between any two parallel chords and
the portions of the curve intercepted by them.
(6) _The Quadrature of the Parabola_ ([Greek: Tetragonisaeos
parabolaes]) is a book in twenty-four propositions, containing two
demonstrations that the area of any segment of a parabola is 4/3 of
the triangle which has the same base as the segment and equal height.
The first (a mechanical proof) begins, after some preliminary
propositions on the parabola, in Prop. 6, ending with an integration
in Prop. 16. The second (a geometrical proof) is expounded in Props.
17-24.
(7) _On Floating Bodies_ ([Greek: Peri ochoumenon]) is a treatise in
two books, the first of which establishes the general principles of
hydrostatics, and the second discusses with the greatest completeness
the positions of rest and stability of a right segment of a paraboloid
of revolution floating in a fluid.
(8) The _Psammites_ ([Greek: Psammitaes], Lat. _Arenarius_, or sand
reckoner), a small treatise, addressed to Gelo, the eldest son of
Hiero, expounding, as applied to reckoning the number of grains of
sand that could be contained in a sphere of the size of our
"universe," a system of naming large numbers according to "orders" and
"periods" which would enable any number to be expressed up to that
which we should write with 1 followed by 80,000 ciphers!
(9) _A Collection of Lemmas_, consisting of fifteen propositions in
plane geometry. This has come down to us through a Latin version of an
Arabic manuscript; it cannot, however, have been written by Archimedes
in its present form, as his name is quoted in it more than once.
Lastly, Archimedes is credited with the famous _Cattle-Problem_,
enunciated in the epigram edited by G.E. Lessing in 1773, which
purports to have been sent by Archimedes to the mathematicians at
Alexandria in a letter to Eratosthenes. Of lost works by Archimedes we
can identify the following: (1) investigations on _polyhedra_
mentioned by Pappus; (2) [Greek: Harchai], _Principles_, a book
addressed to Zeuxippus and dealing with the _naming of numbers_ on the
system explained in the _Sand Reckoner_; (3) [Greek: Peri zygon], _On
balances or levers_; (4) [Greek: Kentrobarika], _On centres of
gravity_; (5) [Greek: Katoptrika], an optical work from which Theon of
Alexandria quotes a remark about refraction; (6) [Greek: Hephodion], a
_Method_, mentioned by Suidas; (7) [Greek: Peri sphairopoiias], _On
Sphere-making_, in which Archimedes explained the construction of the
sphere which he made to imitate the motions of the sun, the moon and
the five planets in the heavens. Cicero actually saw this contrivance
and describes it (_De Rep._ i. c. 14, SS 21-22).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The _editio princeps_ of the works of Archimedes, with
the commentary of Eutocius, is that printed at Basel, in 1544, in
Greek and Latin, by Hervagius. D. Rivault's edition (Paris, 1615) gave
the enunciations in Greek and the proofs in Latin somewhat retouched.
A Latin version of them was published by Isaac Barrow in 1675 (London,
4to); Nicolas Tartaglia published in Latin the treatises on _Centres
of Gravity_, on the _Quadrature of the Parabola_, on the _Measurement
of the Circle_, and on _Floating Bodies_, i. (Venice, 1543); Trojanus
Curtius published the two books on _Floating Bodies_ in 1565 after
Tartaglia's death; Frederic Commandine edited the Aldine edition of
1558, 4to, which contains _Circuli Dimensio_, _De Lineis Spiralibus_,
_Quadratura Paraboles_, _De Conoidibus et Spheroidibus_, and _De
numero Arenae_; and in 1565 the same mathematician published the two
books _De iis quae vehuntur in aqua_. J. Torelli's monumental edition
of the works with the commentaries of Eutocius, published at Oxford in
1792, folio, remained the best Greek text until the definitive text
edited, with Eutocius' commentaries, Latin translation, &c., by J.L.
Heiberg (Leipzig, 1880-1881) superseded it. The _Arenarius_ and
_Dimensio Circuli_, with Eutocius' commentary on the latter, were
edited by Wallis with Latin translation and notes in 1678 (Oxford),
and the _Arenarius_ was also published in English by George Anderson
(London, 1784), with useful notes and illustrations. The first modern
translation of the works is the French edition published by F. Peyrard
(Paris, 1808, 2 vols. 8vo.). A valuable German translation with notes,
by E. Nizze, was published at Stralsund in 1824. There is a complete
edition in modern notation by T.L. Heath (_The Works of Archimedes_,
Cambridge, 1897). On Archimedes himself, see Plutarch's _Life of
Marcellus_. (T. L. H.)
ARCHIMEDES, SCREW OF, a machine for raising water, said to have been
invented by Archimedes, for the purpose of removing water from the hold
of a large ship that had been built by King Hiero II. of Syracuse. It
consists of a water-tight cylinder, enclosing a chamber walled off by
spiral divisions running from end to end, inclined to the horizon, with
its lower open end placed in the water to be raised. The water, while
occupying the lowest portion in each successive division of the spiral
chamber, is lifted mechanically by the turning of the machine. Other
forms have the spiral revolving free in a fixed cylinder, or consist
simply of a tube wound spirally about a cylindrical axis. The same
principle is sometimes used in machines for handling wheat, &c. (see
CONVEYORS).
ARCHIPELAGO, a name now applied to any island-studded sea, but
originally the distinctive designation of what is now generally known as
the Aegean Sea ([Greek: Aigaion pelagos]), its ancient name having been
revived. Several etymologies have been proposed: e.g. (1) it is a
corruption of the ancient name, _Egeopelago_; (2) it is from the modern
Greek, [Greek: Hagio pelago], the Holy Sea; (3) it arose at the time of
the Latin empire, and means the Sea of the Kingdom (_Archi_); (4) it is
a translation of the Turkish name, Ak Denghiz, _Argon Pelagos_, the
White Sea; (5) it is simply _Archipelagus_, Italian, _arcipelago_, the
chief sea. For the Grecian Archipelago see AEGEAN SEA. Other
archipelagoes are described in their respective places.
ARCHIPPUS, an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, who flourished towards
the end of the 5th century B.C. His most famous play was the _Fishes_,
in which he satirized the fondness of the Athenian epicures for fish.
The Alexandrian critics attributed to him the authorship of four plays
previously assigned to Aristophanes. Archippus was ridiculed by his
contemporaries for his fondness for playing upon words (Schol. on
Aristophanes, _Wasps_, 481).
Titles and fragments of six plays are preserved, for which see T.
Kock, _Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta_, i. (1880); or A. Meineke,
_Poetarum Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta_ (1855).
ARCHITECTURE (Lat. _architectura_, from the Gr. [Greek: harchitekton], a
master-builder), the art of building in such a way as to accord with
principles determined, not merely by the ends the edifice is intended to
serve, but by high considerations of beauty and harmony (see FINE ARTS).
It cannot be defined as the art of building simply, or even of building
well. So far as mere excellence of construction is concerned, see
BUILDING and its allied articles. The end of building as such is
convenience, use, irrespective of appearance; and the employment of
materials to this end is regulated by the mechanical principles of the
constructive art. The end of architecture as an art, on the other hand,
is so to arrange the plan, masses and enrichments of a structure as to
impart to it interest, beauty, grandeur, unity, power. Architecture thus
necessitates the possession by the builder of gifts of imagination as
well as of technical skill, and in all works of architecture properly
so called these elements must exist, and be harmoniously combined.
Like the other arts, architecture did not spring into existence at an
early period of man's history The ideas of symmetry and proportion which
are afterwards embodied in material structures could not be evolved
until at least a moderate degree of civilization had been attained,
while the efforts of primitive man in the construction of dwellings must
have been at first determined solely by his physical wants. Only after
these had been provided for, and materials amassed on which his
imagination might exercise itself, would he begin to plan and erect
structures, possessing not only utility, but also grandeur and beauty.
It may be well to enumerate briefly the elements which in combination
form the architectural perfection of a building. These elements have
been very variously determined by different authorities. Vitruvius, the
only ancient writer on the art whose works have come down to us, lays
down three qualities as indispensable in a fine building: _Firmitas,
Utilitas, Venustas_, stability, utility, beauty. From an architectural
point of view the last is the principal, though not the sole element;
and, accordingly, the theory of architecture is occupied for the most
part with aesthetic considerations, or the principles of beauty in
designing. Of such principles or qualities the following appear to be
the most important: size, harmony, proportion, symmetry, ornament and
colour. All other elements may be reduced under one or other of these
heads.
With regard to the first quality, it is clear that, as the feeling of
power is a source of the keenest pleasure, size, or vastness of
proportion, will not only excite in the mind of man the feelings of awe
with which he regards the sublime in nature, but will impress him with a
deep sense of the majesty of human power. It is, therefore, a double
source of pleasure. The feelings with which we regard the Pyramids of
Egypt, the great hall of columns at Karnak, the Pantheon, or the
Basilica of Maxentius at Rome, the Trilithon at Baalbek, the choir of
Beauvais cathedral, or the Arc de l'Etoile at Paris, sufficiently attest
the truth of this quality, _size_, which is even better appreciated when
the buildings are contemplated simply as masses, without being disturbed
by the consideration of the details.
Proportion itself depends essentially upon the employment of
mathematical ratios in the dimensions of a building. It is a curious but
significant fact that such proportions as those of an exact cube, or of
two cubes placed side by side--dimensions increasing by one-half (e.g.,
20 ft. high, 30 wide and 45 long)--or the ratios of the base,
perpendicular and hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle (e.g. 3, 4, 5,
or their multiples)--please the eye more than dimensions taken at
random. No defect is more glaring or more unpleasant than want of
proportion. The Gothic architects appear to have been guided in their
designs by proportions based on the equilateral triangle.
By harmony is meant the general balancing of the several parts of the
design. It is proportion applied to the mutual relations of the details.
Thus, supported parts should have an adequate ratio to their supports,
and the same should be the case with solids and voids. Due attention to
proportion and harmony gives the appearance of stability and repose
which is indispensable to a really fine building. Symmetry is uniformity
in plan, and, when not carried to excess, is undoubtedly effective. But
a building too rigorously symmetrical is apt to appear cold and
tasteless. Such symmetry of general plan, with diversity of detail, as
is presented to us in leaves, animals, and other natural objects, is
probably the just medium between the excesses of two opposing schools.
Next to general beauty or grandeur of form in a building comes
architectural ornament. Ornament, of course, may be used to excess, and
as a general rule it should be confined to the decoration of
constructive parts of the fabric; but, on the other hand, a total
absence or a paucity of ornament betokens an unpleasing poverty.
Ornaments may be divided into two classes--mouldings and the sculptured
representation of natural or fanciful objects. Mouldings, no doubt,
originated, first, in simply taking off the edge of anything that might
be in the way, as the edge of a square post, and then sinking the
chamfer in hollows of various forms; and thence were developed the
systems of mouldings we now find in all styles and periods. Each of
these has its own system; and so well are their characteristics
understood, that from an examination of them a skilful architect will
not only tell the period in which any building has been erected, but
will even give an estimate of its probable size, as professors of
physiology will construct an animal from the examination of a single
bone. Mouldings require to be carefully studied, for nothing offends an
educated eye like a confusion of mouldings, such as Roman forms in Greek
work, or Early English in that of the Tudor period. The same remark
applies to sculptured ornaments. They should be neither too numerous nor
too few, and above all, they should be consistent. The carved ox skulls,
for instance, which are appropriate in a temple of Vesta or of Fortune
would be very incongruous on a Christian church.
Colour must be regarded as a subsidiary element in architecture, and
although it seems almost indispensable and has always been extensively
employed in interiors, it is doubtful how far external colouring is
desirable. Some contend that only local colouring, i.e. the colour of
the materials, should be admitted; but there seems no reason why any
colour should not be used, provided it be employed with discretion and
kept subordinate to the form or outline.
_Origin of the Art._--The origin of the art of architecture is to be
found in the endeavours of man to provide for his physical wants; in the
earliest days the cave, the hut and the tent may have given shelter to
those who devoted themselves to hunting and fishing, to agriculture and
to a pastoral and nomadic life, and in many cases still afford the only
shelter from the weather. There can be no doubt, however, that climate
and the materials at hand affect the forms of the primitive buildings;
thus, in the two earliest settlements of mankind, in Chaldaea and Egypt,
where wood was scarce, the heat in the day-time intense, and the only
material which could be obtained was the alluvial clay, brought down by
the rivers in both those countries, they shaped this into bricks, which,
dried in the sun, enabled them to build rude huts, giving them the
required shelter. These may have been circular or rectangular on plan,
with the bricks laid in horizontal courses, one projecting over the
other, till the walls met at the top. The next advance in Egypt was made
by the employment of the trunks of the palm tree as a lintel over the
doorway, to support the wall above, and to cover over the hut and carry
the flat roof of earth which is found down to the present day in all hot
countries. Evidence of this system of construction is found in some of
the earliest rock-cut tombs at Giza, where the actual dwelling of the
deceased was reproduced in the tomb, and from these reproductions we
gather that the corners, or quoins of the hut were protected by stems of
the douva plant, bound together in rolls by the leaves, which, in the
form of torus rolls, were also carried across the top of the wall. Down
to the present day the huts of the fellahs are built in the same way,
and, surmounted as they are by pigeon-cots, bear so strong a resemblance
to the pylons and the walls of the temples as at all events to suggest,
if not to prove, that in their origin these stone erections were copies
of unburnt brick structures. From long exposure in the sun, these bricks
acquire a hardness and compactness not much inferior to some of the
softer qualities of stone, but they are unable to sustain much pressure;
consequently it is necessary to make the walls thicker at the bottom
than at the top, and it is this which results in the batter or raking
sides of all the unburnt brick walls. The same raking sides are found in
all their _mastabas_, or tombs, sometimes built in unburnt brick and
sometimes in stone, in the latter case being simple reproductions of the
former. In some of the early mastabas, built in brick, either to vary
the monotony of the mass and decorate the walls, or to ensure greater
care in their construction, vertical brick pilasters are provided,
forming sunk panels. These form the principal decoration, as reproduced
in stone, of an endless number of tombs, some of which are in the
British Museum. At the top of each panel they carve a portion of trunk
necessary to support the walls of brick, and over the doorway a similar
feature. In Chaldaea the same decorative features are found in the stage
towers which constituted their temples, and broad projecting buttresses,
indented panels and other features, originally constructive, form the
decorations of the Assyrian palaces. There also, built in the same
material, unburnt brick, the walls have a similar batter, though they
were faced with burnt bricks. In later times in Greece and Asia Minor,
where wood was plentiful, the stone architecture suggests its timber
origin, and though unburnt brick was still employed for the mass of the
walls, the remains in Crete and the representations in painting, &c.,
show that it was encased in timber framing, so that the raking walls
were no longer a necessary element in their structure. The clearest
proofs of original timber construction are shown in the rock-cut tombs
of Lycia, where the ground sill, vertical posts, cross beams, purlins
and roof joists are all direct imitations of structures originally
erected in wood.
The numerous relics of structures left by primeval man have generally
little or no architectural value; and the only interesting problem
regarding them--the determination of their date and purpose and of the
degree of civilization which they manifest--falls within the province of
archaeology (see ARCHAEOLOGY; BARROW; LAKE-DWELLINGS; STONE MONUMENTS).
Technical terms in architecture will be found separately explained under
their own headings in this work, and in this article a general
acquaintance with them is assumed. A number of architectural subjects
are also considered in detail in separate articles; see, for instance,
CAPITAL; COLUMN; DESIGN; ORDER; and such headings as ABBEY; AQUEDUCT;
ARCH; BASILICA; BATHS; BRIDGES; CATACOMB; CRYPT; DOME; MOSQUE; PALACE;
PYRAMID; TEMPLE; THEATRE; &c., &c. Also such general articles on
national art as CHINA: _Art_; EGYPT: _Art and Archaeology_; GREEK ART;
ROMAN ART; &c., and the sections on architecture and buildings under the
headings of countries and towns.
In the remainder of this article the general history of the evolution of
the art of architecture will be considered in various sections,
associated with the nations and periods from which the leading historic
styles are chronologically derived, in so far as the dominant influences
on the art, and not the purely local characteristics of countries
outside the main current of its history, are concerned; but the
opportunity is taken to treat with some attempt at comprehensiveness the
leading features of the architectural history of those countries and
peoples which are intimately connected with the development of modern
architecture.
These consecutive sections are as follows:--
Egyptian
Assyrian
Persian
Greek
Parthian
Sassanian
Etruscan
Roman
Byzantine
Early Christian
Early Christian Work in Central Syria
Coptic Church in Egypt
Romanesque and Gothic in--
Italy
France
Spain
England
Germany
Belgium and Holland
Renaissance: Introduction
Italy
France
Spain
England
Germany
Belgium and Holland
Mahommedan
Finally, a section on what can only be collectively termed _Modern_
architecture deals with the main lines of the later developments down
to the present day in the architectural history of different
countries. (R. P. S.)
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE
Although structures discovered in Chaldaea, at Tello and Nippur,
seeming to date back to the fifth millennium B.C., suggest that the
earlier settlements of mankind were in the valley of the Tigris and
Euphrates, north of the Persian Gulf, it is to Egypt that we must turn
for the most ancient records of monumental architecture (see also
EGYPT: _Art and Archaeology_). The proximity of the ranges of hills
(the Arabian and Libyan chains) to the Nile, and the facilities which
that river afforded for the transport of the material quarried in
them, enabled the Egyptians at a very early period to reproduce in
stone those structures in unburnt brick to which we have already
referred.
Although the great founder of the first Egyptian monarchy is reputed
to be Menes, the Thinite who traditionally founded the capital at
Memphis, he was preceded, according to Flinders Petrie, by an earlier
invading race coming from the south, who established a monarchy at
This near Abydos, having entered the country by the Kosseir road from
the Red Sea; and this may account for the early tradition that it was
the Ethiopians who founded the earliest dynastic race, "Ethiopians"
being a wide term which may embrace several races.
Egyptian architecture is usually described under the principal periods
in which it was developed. They are as follows[1]:--(A) the Memphite
kingdom, whose capital was at Memphis, south-west of Cairo, the Royal
Domain extending south some 30 to 40 m.; (B) the first Theban kingdom
with Thebes as the capital; this covers three dynasties. Then follows
an interregnum of five dynasties, when the invasion of the Hyksos took
place; this was architecturally unproductive. On the expulsion of the
Hyksos there followed (C) the second Theban kingdom, consisting of
three dynasties, under whose reign the finest temples were erected
throughout the country. After 1102 followed six dynasties (1102-525
B.C.), with capitals at Sais, Tanis and Bubastis, when the decadence
of art and power took place. Then followed the Persian invasion,
525-331 B.C., which was destructive instead of being reproductive. On
the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great, and after his death
in 323 B.C., was founded (D) the Ptolemaic kingdom, with Alexandria as
the capital. A great revival of art then took place, which to a
certain extent was carried on under the Roman occupation from 27 B.C.,
and lasted about 300 years.
With the exception of a small temple, found by Petrie in front of the
temple of Medum, and the so-called "Temple of the Sphinx," the only
monuments remaining of the Memphite kingdom are the Pyramids, which
were built by the kings as their tombs, and the _mastabas_, in which
the members of the royal family and of the priests and chiefs were
buried. The mastaba (Arabic for "bench") was a tomb, oblong in plan,
with battering side and a flat roof, containing various chambers, of
which the principal were (1) the Chapel for offerings, (2) the Serdab,
in which the Ka or double of the deceased was deposited, and (3) the
well, always excavated in the rock, in which the mummy was placed.
The three best-known pyramids are those situated about 7 m. south-west
of Cairo, which were built by the second, third and fourth kings of
the fourth dynasty,--Khufu (c. 3969-3908 B.C.), Khafra (c. 3908-3845
B.C.), and Menkaura (c. 3845-3784 B.C.), who are better known as
Cheops, Cephren and Mycerinus. The first of these is the largest and
most remarkable in its construction and setting out. The pyramid of
Cephren was slightly smaller, and that of Mycerinus still more so,
compensated for by a casing in granite. The dimensions and other
details are given in the article PYRAMIDS. From the purely
architectural point of view they are the least impressive of masses,
and their immense size is not realized until on a close approach.
The temple of the Sphinx, attributed to Cephren, is T-shaped in plan,
with two rows of square piers down the vertical and one row down the
cross portion. These carried a flat roof of stone. The temple is
remarkable for the splendid finish given to the granite piers, and to
the alabaster slabs which cased the rock in which it had been
partially excavated (but see EGYPT: _History_, I.).
The Serapeum at Sakkara, in which the sacred bulls were embalmed and
buried, the tomb of Ti (a fifth dynasty courtier), and the tombs of
the kings and queens of Thebes, have no special architectural features
which call for description here.
We pass on to the first Theban kingdom, the eighth king of which,
Nebhepre Menthotp III., built the temple lately discovered on the
south side of the temple at Deir-el-Bahri, of which it is the
prototype. It was a sepulchral temple, and being built on rising
ground was approached by flights of steps. In the centre was a solid
mass of masonry which, it is thought by some authorities, was crowned
by a pyramid. This was surrounded by a double portico with square
piers in the outer range, and octagonal piers in the inner range,
there being a wall between the two ranges.
The earliest tombs in which the _column_ (q.v.) appears, as an
architectural feature, are those at Beni Hasan, attributed to the
period of Senwosri (formerly read Usertesen) I., the second king of
the twelfth dynasty. These are carved in the solid rock. There are two
types, the Polygonal column, sometimes in error called the
Protodoric, which was cut in the rock in imitation of a wooden column,
and a second variety known as the Lotus column, which is employed
inside, supporting the rock-cut roof, but having such slender
proportions as to suggest that it was copied from the posts of a
porch, round which the Lotus plant had been tied.
The culminating period of the Egyptian style begins with the kings of
the eighteenth dynasty, their principal capital being Thebes,
described by Herodotus as the "City with the Hundred Gates"; and
although the execution of the masonry is inferior to that of the older
dynasties, the grandeur of the conception of their temples, and the
wealth displayed in their realization entitle Thebes to the most
important position in the history of the Egyptian style, especially as
the temples there grouped on both sides of the river exceed in number
and dimensions the whole of the other temples throughout Egypt. This
to a certain extent may possibly be due to the distance of Thebes from
the Mediterranean, which has contributed to their preservation from
invaders. We have already referred to the probable origin of the
peculiar batter or raking side given to the walls of the pylons and
temples, with the Torus moulding surrounding the same and crowned with
the cavetto cornice. What, however, is more remarkable is the fact
that, once accepted as an important and characteristic feature, it
should never have been departed from, and that down to and during the
Roman occupation the same batter is found in all the temples, though
constructively there was no necessity for it. The strict adherence to
tradition may possibly account for this, but it has resulted in a
magnificent repose possessed by these structures, which seem built to
last till eternity.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Plan of the Temple of Chons.
A, Pylon.
B, Great court.
C, Hall of columns.
D, Priest's hall.
E, Sanctuary.]
An avenue with sphinxes on both sides forms the approach to the
temple. These avenues were sometimes of considerable length, as in the
case of that reaching from Karnak to Luxor, which is 1-1/2 m. long.
The leading features of the temple (see fig. 1) were:--(A) The pylon,
consisting of two pyramidal masses of masonry crowned with a cavetto
cornice, united in the centre by an immense doorway, in front of which
on either side were seated figures of the king and obelisks. (B) A
great open court surrounded by peristyles on two or three sides. (C) A
great hall with a range of columns down the centre on either side,
forming what in European architecture would be known as nave and
aisles, with additional aisles on each side; these had columns of less
height than those first mentioned, so as to allow of a clerestory,
lighting the central avenue. (D) Smaller halls with their flat roofs
carried by columns. And finally (E) the sanctuary, with passage round
giving access to the halls occupied by the priest.
Broadly speaking, the temples bear considerable resemblance to one
another (see TEMPLE), except in dimensions. There is one important
distinction, however, to be drawn between the Theban temples and those
built under the Ptolemaic rule. In these latter the halls are not
enclosed between pylons, but left open on the side of the entrance
court with screens in between the columns, the hall being lighted from
above the screens. The temples of Edfu, Esna and Dendera are thus
arranged.
The great temple of Karnak (fig. 2) differs from the type just
described, in that it was the work of many successive monarchs. Thus
the sanctuary, built in granite, and the surrounding chambers, were
erected by Senwosri (Usertesen) I. of the twelfth dynasty. In front of
this, on the west side, pylons were added by Tethmosis (Thothmes,
Tahutmes) I. (1541-1516), enclosing a hall, in the walls of which were
Osirid figures. In front of this a third pylon was added, which Seti
(Sethos) I. utilized as one of the enclosures of the great hall of
columns (fig. 3), measuring 170 ft. deep by 329 ft. wide, having added
a fourth pylon on the other side to enclose it. Again in front of this
was the great open court with porticoes on two sides, and a great
pylon, forming the entrance. In the rear of all these buildings, and
some distance beyond the sanctuary, Tethmosis III. (1503-1449) built a
great colonnaded hall with other halls round, considered to have been
a palace. All these structures form a part only of the great temple,
on the right and left of which (i.e. to the north-east and south-west)
were other temples preceded by pylons and connected one with the other
by avenues of sphinxes. Though of small size comparatively, one of the
best preserved is the temple of Chons, built by Rameses III. It was
from this temple that an avenue of sphinxes led to the temple of
Luxor, which was begun by Amenophis III. (1414-1379 B.C.), and
completed by Rameses II. (1300-1234).
On the opposite or west bank of the Nile are the temple of Medinet
Abu, the Ramesseum, the temples of Kurna and of Deir-el-Bahri; the
last being a sepulchral temple, which, built on rising ground, had
flights of steps leading to the higher level (fig. 4), and porticoes
with square piers at the foot of each terrace. In the rear on the
right-hand side was found an altar, the only example of its kind known
in Egypt. The halls behind this and the portico of the right flank had
polygonal columns.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.
PLAN OF KARNAK.
From Murray's Handbook for Egypt, by permission of Mr. Edward
Stanford.]
In the palace of Tell el-Amarna, built shortly before 1350 B.C. by the
heretic king Akhenaton (whose name was originally Amenophis IV.), and
discovered by Petrie, there were no special architectural
developments, but the painted decoration of the walls and pavements
assumed a literal interpretation of natural forms of plants and
foliage and of birds and animals, recalling to some extent that found
at Cnossus in Crete.
Ascending the river from Cairo, the first temples of which important
remains exist are the two at Abydos. One of these has an exceptional
plan, with seven sanctuaries in the rear. It was built by Seti I., and
consists of an outer portico with square piers, a hall with two rows
of columns down to the centre, and a second hall with three rows of
columns. These halls are placed longitudinally to give access to the
seven sanctuaries. The second temple is of the ordinary type, with
pylon, court with portico on all four sides, two halls of columns, and
three sanctuaries in the rear. The next temple is that of Dendera,
commenced under the second Ptolemy but not completed until the reign
of Nero. It has been completely excavated, and retains the whole of
its external walls. Above Thebes is the temple of Esna, of which the
hall of columns only has been cleared out. The capitals of the front
belong to the lotus-bud type, and those of the interior are carved
with many varieties of river plant. The temple of Edfu is the best
preserved in Egypt. Its plan (fig. 5) would seem to have been
determined from the first, and it is singular to note that it presents
the traditional type of plan, which in the Theban examples was evolved
from additions made by successive monarchs. In dimensions it is but
little inferior to these. Its pylon (fig. 6) is 250 ft. wide and 150
ft. high; the first court has porticoes on three sides. The great hall
of columns, all of which here are of the same height, is lighted from
above (fig. 7), the screen facing the court. Then follow the second
hall of columns, two vestibules, and the sanctuary, surrounded by a
passage giving access to the priest's rooms round. The temple of Kom
Ombo, which comes next, was dedicated to two deities, and had
therefore two sanctuaries.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Section through Hall of Columns, Karnak. a,
Clerestory window.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Temple of Deir-el-Bahri, conjectural
restoration by Prof. E. Brune.]
The temples of Philae owe much of their beauty and picturesqueness to
the island on which they are situated; their plans, and that of the
long porticoes in front of the pylons of the great temple, being
fitted to the irregularity of the site. In the first court is a
well-preserved example of the Mammeisi temple (see TEMPLE), the
sanctuary and other rooms in which are entirely enclosed in a
peristyle. It was built by Ptolemy Euergetes (247-222 B.C.). A second
monarch of the same name (about 125 B.C.) built the pavilion on the
north side of the island, known as "Pharaoh's bed," the roof of which
was covered with stone slabs, resting on timber beams. In consequence
of the building of the Assuan dam all these temples are submerged for
the greater part of the year. The principal temples between Philae and
the second cataract are:--Dabod, of which little remains; Kartassi;
Kalabsha, still preserving its pylon and great hall of columns; the
Bet el-Wali, in which are two ancient polygonal columns; Gerf Husen,
partially cut in the rock; Dakka; Wadi es-Sebu'a; and lastly Abu
Simbel. Owing to the proximity of the ranges of hills to the Nile,
there was no room for the ordinary type of temple at Abu Simbel, so
that those founded here by Rameses the Great (c. 1300-1234 B.C.) were
excavated in the rock. In the place of the pylon the side of the cliff
was worked off, leaving in relief four immense seated figures, 66 ft.
high. The first hall had three aisles, divided by four piers on each
side, in front of which Osirid figures (18 ft. high) were carved;
beyond was a second hall, vestibule and sanctuary. The long
rectangular chambers on each side are provided with benches cut in the
rock. The depth of the temple is 90 ft. There is a second temple of
smaller size which faces the Nile.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Plan of the Temple of Edfu.
AA, Pylon.
B, Entrance door.
C, Great Court.
D, Hall of Columns.
E, Second Hall.
F, Hall of the Altar.
G, Hall of the Centre.
H, Sanctuary.
KK, Storerooms.]
We have already referred to the lotus columns at Beni Hasan; these,
when employed constructionally to carry stone roofs, assumed a far
more solid appearance, and the stems of the lotus plant carved in the
earlier examples were omitted in the later, in order to give more
surface for intaglio carving. The capital and its neck still retain
the lotus buds and the bands which tied them round the column. In the
central avenues of the great halls the columns had bell capitals, the
decoration of which was based on the flower of the papyrus. There are
a few examples of the palm capital, often carved in granite, which
date from an early period. Commencing with the Ptolemaic revival the
capitals assume a much greater variety of form, their decoration being
based on river plants; but here again the lotus plant, which seems
still to be the favourite type, predominates, the buds in various
degrees of their growth alternating one with the other. All these
varieties of form are described in the article CAPITAL, but two or
three may be mentioned here, as they depart from the usual type. The
Hathor-headed capital, with faces on all four sides, and surmounted
with a miniature shrine, is found at Dendera, Philae and other temples
of the Ptolemaic or Roman periods; one of the earliest examples, but
without the shrine, dates back to Tethmosis III. (1503-1449 B.C.). As
a distinct type of pier decoration, the Osirid figures at Medinet Abu,
at Karnak, Gerf Husen, Abu Simbel and other temples, constitute
important features: the figure is carved in front of the pier and does
not serve any constructive function.
With the exception of the great building in the rear of the temple at
Karnak, built by Tethmosis III., and the pavilion of Medinet Abu on
the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, no palatial residences of any
importance have yet been found, from which it might be inferred that
the king, being the head of the Egyptian religion, occupied with his
family the sacred precincts of the temple; but large as these temple
enclosures are, there would have been no room for the immense army of
attendants and servants required in an Oriental court. Moreover, the
darkness of the halls and the rigid enclosures would have made a
residence in them anything but cheerful. There are two instances
where, in consequence of the subsequent desertion of the site, remains
have been found of ancient towns. At Tell el-Amarna, built by the
heretic king, Akhenaton, portions of the houses remain, and at Kahun,
in the Fayum, Petrie discovered the walls of a town which, erected for
the overseers and workmen employed in the construction of the pyramid
of Illahun, built by Senwosri (Usertesen) II. (2684-2666 B.C.), was
abandoned when the pyramid was completed. The houses were all built in
unburnt brick, and in those cases where the rooms exceeded 8 or 9 ft.
in width, columns in stone or wood were employed to assist in carrying
the roof, which was constructed of beams carrying smaller timbers
covered over with a flat roof of mud. The plans of the houses were not
unlike those found in Pompeii, with open courts and porticoes and no
external windows. The streets ran at right angles to one another, and
the houses varied in size from the workman's hut, of one room, to the
overseer's house with several rooms and courts; the principal
residence, in the centre, occupied by the governor of the town, being
of still larger dimensions.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Exterior of the Pylon of the Temple of Edfu.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Facade of the Great Hall of Columns of the
Ptolemaic temple at Edfu.]
Further knowledge of the Egyptian dwellings is chiefly derived from
the "soul-houses" recently discovered by Petrie, and from the
paintings in the tombs, which suggest that they corresponded to that
class of residence which in Rome was known as a villa, viz. a series
of detached buildings built in immense enclosures, with porticoes
round, groves of trees, artificial lakes, &c. The walls, gates and
buildings were all built probably in unburnt brick, and the whole
site, if on the borders of the river, raised on great mounds. In this
respect they accord with the houses of the fellah at the present day,
which are raised on the accumulation of centuries, for when, owing to
the rise of the Nile, the houses succumb to the moisture creeping up,
another house is built on the top. The representations in paintings
show that the houses were chiefly built in unburnt brick, and they
sometimes were of two or three storeys with windows in the upper
floors, and a flat roof with a kind of dormer known as the Mulhuf,
turned towards the north-west to ventilate the house. The paintings
frequently represent the store-rooms, or granaries; and the
preservation of those built by Rameses the Great, in the rear of the
Ramesseum at Thebes, as granaries to hold corn, enables us to follow
their construction. These granaries consist of a series of long
cellars, about 12 to 14 ft. wide, placed side by side, and roofed over
with elliptical barrel vaults. The reason for the elliptical form and
the method of their construction is given in the article VAULT (q.v.).
The pavilion of Medinet Abu was built in stone, and consequently has
been preserved more or less complete to our day. It consisted of three
storeys with a flat roof and battlement round, said to be in imitation
of those on a Syrian fortress, as they are quite unlike anything else
in Egypt. The floors were in wood, but there are traces of a stone
staircase. The windows, of large size, were filled with thin stone
slabs pierced with vertical slits, like those of the hall of columns
at Karnak. (R. P. S.)
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE
About 3800 B.C. the earlier inhabitants of Chaldaea or Babylonia were
invaded and absorbed by a Semitic race, whose first monarch was Sargon
of Agade (Akkad). 1800 years later, emigrations took place northward,
and founded Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris, about 250 m. north of
Babylon. 1200 years later, the Assyrians began building the
magnificent series of palaces from which were brought the winged
man-headed bulls and the sculptured slabs now in the British Museum.
The leading characteristics of the style, and the nature of the
structures, temples and palaces, evolved by the Chaldaeans (or first
Babylonian empire), the Assyrians, and the new Babylonian empire, are
similar; they are best known by those which represent a culmination of
the style in north Mesopotamia, and are therefore described here.
By a singular coincidence the remains of the oldest building found at
Nippur (Niffar), in lower Mesopotamia, bear a close resemblance to the
oldest pyramid in Egypt, Medum, before it received its final casing.
The latter, however, is known to have been a tomb, whereas the
structure at Nippur was a temple, which took the form of a _ziggurat_
or stage tower. It consisted of several storeys built one over the
other, the upper storey in each case being set back behind the lower,
in order to leave a terrace all round. In some cases the terrace was
wider in front, to give space for staircases ascending from storey to
storey. In consequence of the extreme flatness of the country and its
liability to sudden inundations, it became necessary, when erecting
buildings of any kind, to raise them on mounds of earth. The more
important the structure, the higher was it deemed necessary to raise
it, so as to make it the most conspicuous feature in the landscape.
The result is that from Abu Shahrain, the most southern town, to
Akarkuf (Aqarquf), 220 m. north, there are a series of immense mounds,
sometimes nearly a mile in diameter, and rising to a height of 200
ft., crowned with the remains of towns, which, notwithstanding the
thirty centuries more or less during which they have been exposed to
the torrential rains and the destructive agencies of man, form still
the most prominent features in the country. The structures which were
raised on the mound, i.e. the temples and palaces with their enclosure
walls, were all built with bricks made of the alluvial clay of the
country, shaped in wooden moulds and dried in the heat of the sun, a
heat so intense that they acquired sometimes the hardness of the
inferior qualities of stone. The walls of the temples, palaces and
enclosures had the same batter as that already referred to in the
preceding section on Egypt. In the latter country they were reproduced
in stone, of which there were many quarries on either side of the
Nile; in Chaldaea they were obliged to content themselves with the
preservation of their ziggurats by outer casings of burnt brick and
with pavements of tiles for their terraces. In order to vary the
monotony of their temple walls, and perhaps to give them greater
strength, they built vertical bands or buttresses at intervals, or
they sank panels in the walls to two depths, a natural decoration to
which brick work lends itself; and these two methods, which were
employed in early times, were followed by the Assyrians in the palaces
of Nimrud, Nineveh and Khorsabad.
The earlier settlements were those founded between the mouths of the
Tigris and the Euphrates, on what was then the shore of the Persian
Gulf, now some 140 m. farther south. The principal towns where the
remains of ziggurats have been found, all on the borders of the
Euphrates, beginning with the most southern, are:--Abu Shahrain
(Eridu); Mugheir (Ur of the Chaldees); Senkera (? Ellasar or Larsa);
Warka (Erech); Tello (Eninnu); Nippur; Birs Nimrud (Borsippa); Babil
(Babylon); El Ohemir (Kish); Abu Habba (Sippara); and Akarkuf
(Durkurigalsu).
Although the ziggurats at Warka, Nippur and Tello are probably of
older foundation, the great temple of Borsippa at Birs Nimrud is in
better preservation, having been restored or rebuilt by
Nebuchadrezzar, and may be taken as a typical example. The ground
storey was 272 ft. square, and, according to Fergusson, 45 ft. high.
The upper storeys or stages receded back, one behind the other, so as
to leave a terrace all round. Although it is not possible to trace
more than four storeys, it is known from the description on a cylinder
found on the site that there were seven storeys, dedicated to the
planets, each coloured with the special tint prescribed. The total
height was about 160 ft., and on the top was a shrine dedicated to the
god Nebo. An invaluable record of the researches which have been made
during the last three centuries or more is given in H.V. Hilprecht's
_Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century_. Two or three of
them might be mentioned here. At Warka Mr Kenneth Loftus uncovered a
wall, strengthened by buttresses 15 ft. wide and projecting 18 in.,
between which were panels filled with a series of semicircular shafts
side by side, both buttresses and shafts being decorated with
geometrical patterns consisting of small earthenware cones embedded in
the wall, the ends of which were enamelled in various colours. The
design of these patterns is so unlike anything found in Assyrian work,
but bears so close a resemblance to the geometrical designs carved on
the columns at Diarbekr ascribed to the Parthians, that this wall may
have been built at a much later period; and this becomes the more
probable in view of the discoveries made subsequently at Tello and
Nippur, where Parthian palaces have been found, crowning the summits
of the ancient Chaldaean mounds. In both these towns the researches
made in later years have been carried out far more methodically than
previously, and, following the example of Schliemann, excavations have
been made to great depths, careful notes being taken of the strata
shown by the platforms at different levels. At Tello, de Sarzac
discovered the magnificent collection of statues of diorite now in the
Louvre, one of them (unfortunately headless) of Gudea, priest-king and
architect of Lagash, seated and carrying on his lap a tablet, on which
is engraved the plan of a fortified enclosure, whilst a divided scale
and a stylos are carved in relief near the upper and right-hand side.
A silver inlaid vase of Entemena, also priest-king of Lagash (about
3950 B.C.), and other treasures, were found on the same site.
At Nippur (the ancient Calneh) the research undertaken by the
university of Pennsylvania resulted in the discovery, under a ziggurat
dated from 4000-4500 B.C., of a barrel-vaulted tunnel, in the floor of
which were found terra-cotta drain pipes with flanged mouths. At a
later date (3750 B.C.) Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, had built over
the older ziggurat a loftier and larger temple, above which was a
third built by Ur Gur (2500 B.C.), which still retained its burnt
brick casing, 5 ft. thick. Crowning all these was the Parthian palace
mentioned in the section on Parthian architecture below. The result of
these researches has not only carried back the date of the earlier
settlements to a prehistoric period quite unknown, but has suggested
that if similar researches are carried out in other well-known mounds,
among which the great city of Babylon should be counted as the most
important, further revelations may still be made.
[Illustration: From _The History of Art in Chaldaea and Assyria_, by
permission of Chapman & Hill, Ltd.
FIG. 8--Plan of the Palace at Khorsabad.
A, Principal courtyard.
B, The harem.
C, The offices.
DD, The halls of state.
E, Official residences.
F, The king's residence.
G, The ziggurat or temple.]
But we have now to pass to the principal cities of the Assyrian
monarchy on the river Tigris. At Nineveh, the capital, which is about
250 m. north of Babylon, the remains of three palaces have been found,
those of Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.), Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.), and
Assurbampal (668-626 B.C.). At Nimrud (the ancient Calah, founded by
Assur), 20 m. south of Nineveh, are also three palaces, one (the
earliest known) built by Assurnazirpal (885-860 B.C.), the others by
Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.) and Esarhaddon. At Balawat, 10 m. east
of Niniveh, was a second palace of Shalmaneser II., and at Khorsabad,
10 m. north-east of Nineveh, the palace (fig. 8) built by Sargon
(722-705 B.C.), which was situated on the banks of the Khanser, a
tributary of the Tigris. As this palace is one of the most extensive
of those hitherto explored, its description will best give the general
idea of the plan and conception of an Assyrian palace.
The palace was built on an immense platform, made of sun-dried bricks,
enclosed in masonry, and covering an area of nearly one million square
feet, raised 48 ft. above the town level. The principal front of the
palace measured 900 ft., there being a terrace in front. The approach
was probably by a double inclined ramp which chariots and horses could
mount. A central and two side portals (fig. 9), flanked with winged
human-headed bulls (now in the British Museum), led to the principal
courtyard (A), measuring 300 ft. by 240 ft. The block (B) on the left
of the court, containing smaller courts and rooms, constituted the
harem; that on the right the offices (C); those in the rear the halls
of state (DDD), the residences of the officers of the court (E), the
king's private apartments (F) being on the left, facing the ziggurat
or temple (G). In the extreme rear were other state rooms with
terraces probably laid out as gardens and commanding a view of the
river and country beyond.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Entrance gateway, Palace of Khorsabad.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Bas-relief of group of buildings at Kuyunjik.
(After Layard.)]
As there must have been nearly 700 rooms in the palace, the
destination of the greater number of which it would be difficult to
determine, it will be sufficient to refer only to those state rooms in
which the principal sculptured slabs were found, and which decorated
the lower 9 ft. of the walls. The two chief factors to be noted are
(1) the great length of the halls compared with their width, the chief
hall being 150 ft. long and 30 ft. wide, and (2) the immense thickness
of the walls, which measured 28 ft. The only reason for walls of this
thickness would be to resist the thrust of a vault, and as La Place,
the French explorer, found many blocks of earth of great size, the
soffits of which were covered with stucco and had apparently fallen
from a height, he was led to the conclusion, now generally accepted,
that these halls were vaulted. These discoveries, and the fact that in
none of the palaces excavated has a single foundation of the base of
any column been found, quite dispose of Fergusson's restoration, which
was based on the palaces of Persepolis. Moreover, the two climates are
entirely different. In the mountainous country of Persia the breezes
might be welcomed, but in Mesopotamia the heat is so intense that
every precaution has to be taken to protect the inmates of the house
or palace. Thick walls and vaults were a necessity in Nineveh, and
even the windows or openings must have been of small dimensions. No
windows have been found, nor are any shown on the bas-reliefs, except
on the upper parts of towers. It is possible therefore that the light
was admitted through terra-cotta pipes or cylinders, of which many
were found on the site, and this is the modern system of lighting the
dome in the East. Although no remains have ever been found of domes in
any of the Assyrian palaces, the representation of many domical forms
is given in a bas-relief found at Kuyunjik (fig. 10), suggesting that
the dome was often employed to roof over their halls.
Reference has already been made to the bas-reliefs which decorated the
lower portion of the great halls; the less important rooms had their
walls covered with stucco and painted. Externally the architectural
decoration was of the simplest kind; the lower portion of the walls
was faced with stone; and the monumental portals, in addition to the
winged bulls which flanked them, had deep archivolts in coloured
enamels on glazed brick, with figures and rosettes in bright colours.
A similar decoration would seem to have been applied to the
crenellated battlements, which crowned all the exterior walls, as also
those of the courts. The buttresses inside the courts, and the towers
which flanked the chief entrance, were decorated with vertical
semicircular mouldings of brick. This system of decoration is also
found in the ziggurats or observatories behind the harem, where the
three lower storeys still exist. A winding ramp was carried round this
tower, the storeys of which were set back one behind the other, the
burnt brick paving of the ramp and the crenellated battlements forming
a parapet, portions of which are still _in situ_.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Plan of Persepolis.]
Although not unknown in either Chaldaea or Assyria, the stone column,
according to Perrot and Chipiez, found no place in those structures of
crude brick of which the real architecture of Mesopotamia consisted.
Only one example in stone, in which the shaft and capital together are
3 ft. 4 in. in height, has been found. Two bases of similar design to
the capital are supposed to have supported wooden columns carrying an
awning. There are representations in the bas-reliefs of kiosks in a
garden, the columns in which, with volute capitals, are supposed to
have been of wood sheathed in metal, and on the bronze bands of the
Balawat gates in the British Museum are representations of the
interior of a house with wood columns and bracket capitals, and
several awnings carried by posts. Small windows are shown in some of
the bas-reliefs, with balustrades of small columns, which were
doubtless copied from the ivory plaques found at Nimrud and now in the
British Museum. (R. P. S.)
PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE
The origin of Persian architecture must be sought for in that of the
two earlier dynasties,--the Assyrian and Median, to whose empire the
Persian monarchy succeeded by conquest in 560 B.C. From the former, it
borrowed the raised platform on which their palaces were built, the
broad flights of steps leading up to them and the winged human-headed
bulls which flank the portals of the propylaea. From Media it would
seem to have derived the great halls of columns and the porticoes of
the palaces, so clearly described by Polybius (x. 24) as existing at
Ecbatana; the principal difference being that the columns of the stoas
and peristyle, which there consisted of cedar and cypress covered with
silver plates, were in the Persian palaces built of stone. The
ephemeral nature of the one material, and the intrinsic value of the
other, are sufficient to account for their entire disappearance; but
as Ecbatana was occupied by Darius and Xerxes as one of their
principal cities, the stone column, bases and capitals, which still
exist there, may be regarded as part of the restoration and rebuilding
of the palace; and as they are similar to those found at Persepolis
and Susa, it is fair to assume that the source of the first
inspiration of Persian architecture came from the Medians, especially
as Cyrus, the first king, was brought up at the court of Astyages, the
last Median monarch.
The earliest Persian palace, of which but scanty remains have been
found, was built at Pasargadae by Cyrus. There is sufficient, however,
to show that it was of the simplest kind, and consisted of a central
hall, the roof of which was carried by two rows of stone columns, 30
ft. high, and porticoes _in antis_ on two if not on three sides.
The great platform, also at Pasargadae, known as the Takht-i-Suleiman,
or throne of Solomon, covered an area of about 40,000 sq. ft., and is
remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large stones of which
it is built. These are all sunk round the edge, being the earliest
example of what is known as "drafted masonry," which at Jerusalem and
Hebron gives so magnificent an effect to the great walls of the temple
enclosures. No remains have ever been traced on this platform of the
palace which it was probably built to support.
We pass on therefore to Persepolis, the most important of the Persian
cities, if we may judge by the remains still existing there. Here, as
at Pasargadae, builders availed themselves of a natural rocky
platform, at the foot of a range of hills, which they raised in parts
and enclosed with a stone wall. Here the masonry is not drafted, and
the stones are not always laid in horizontal courses, but they are
shaped and fitted to one another with the greatest accuracy, and are
secured by metal clamps. The plan (fig. 11) shows the general
configuration of the platform on which the palaces of Persepolis are
built, which covered an area of about 1,600,000 sq. ft. The principal
approach to it was at the north-west end, up a magnificent flight of
steps (A) with a double ramp, the steps being 22 ft. wide, with a
tread of 15 in. and a rise of 4, so that they could be ascended by
horses. The first building opposite this staircase was the entrance
gateway or propylaea (B), a square hall, with four columns carrying
the roof and with portals in the front and rear flanked by winged
bulls. The earliest palace on the platform (D) is that which was built
by Darius, 521 B.C. It was rectangular on plan, raised on a platform
approached by two flights of steps, and consisted of an entrance
portico of eight columns, in two rows of four placed _in antis_,
between square chambers, in which were probably staircases leading to
the roof. This portico led to the great hall, square on plan, whose
roof was carried by sixteen columns in four rows. This hall was
lighted by two windows on each side of the central doorway, all of
which, being in stone, still exist, the lintels and jambs of both
doors and windows being monolithic. The walls between these features,
having been built in unburnt brick, or in rubble masonry with clay
mortar, have long since disappeared. There were other rooms on each
side of the hall and an open court in the rear. The bases of the
columns of the portico still remain _in situ_, as also one of the
antae in solid masonry; and as these in their relative position and
height are in exact accordance with those represented on the tomb of
Darius (fig. 12) and other tombs carved in the rock near Persepolis
(q.v.), there is no difficulty in forming a fairly accurate
conjectural restoration of the same. In the representation of this
palace, as shown on the tomb, and above the portico, has been
sculptured the great throne of Darius, on which he sat, rendering
adoration to the Sun god.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--The Tomb of Darius, cut in the cliff at
Nakshi Rustam, near Persepolis.]
All the other palaces on the site, built or added to by various
monarchs and at different periods, preserve very much the same plan,
consisting always of a great square hall, the roof of which was
carried by columns, with one or more porticoes round, and smaller
rooms and courts in the rear. In one of the palaces (G) the roof was
carried by 100 columns in ten rows of ten each. The most important
building, however, and one which from its extent, height and
magnificence, is one of the most stupendous works of antiquity, is the
great palace of Xerxes (C), which, though it consists only of a great
central hall and three porticoes, covered an area of over 100,000 sq.
ft., greater than any European cathedral, those of Milan and St
Peter's at Rome alone excepted.
It was built on a platform raised 10 ft. above the terrace and
approached by four flights of steps on the north side, the principal
entrance. The columns of the porticoes and of the great hall were 65
ft. high, including base and capital. In the east and west porticoes
the capitals consist only of the double bull or griffin; the cross
corbels on their backs, similar to those shown on the tomb of Darius,
have disappeared, being probably in wood. In the north or entrance
portico, and in the great hall, the capitals are of a much more
elaborated nature, as under the double capital was a composition of
Ionic capitals set on end, and below that the calix and pendant leaves
of the lotus plant. It can only be supposed that Xerxes, thinking the
columns of the east portico required more decoration, instructed his
architects to add some to those of the entrance portico and hall, and
that they copied some of the spoils brought from Branchidae and others
from Egypt.
Fig. 13 shows the plan of the palace according to the researches of Mr
Weld Blundell, who found the traces of the walls surrounding the great
hall and of the square chambers at the angles, and also proved that
the lines of the drains as shown in Coste's and Texier's plans were
incorrect. M. Dieulafoy also traced the existence of walls enclosing
the Apadana at Susa from the paving of the hall and the portico which
stopped on the lines of the wall. The plan of the palace at Susa was
similar to that of the palace of Xerxes, except that on the side
facing the garden facing south the apadana or throne room was left
open. M. Dieulafoy's discoveries at Susa of the frieze of archers, the
frieze of the lions, and other decorations of the walls flanking the
staircase, all executed in bright coloured enamels on concrete blocks,
revealed the exceptional beauty of the decoration both externally and
internally applied to the Persian palaces.
[Illustration: From R.P. Spier's _Architecture, East and West_.
FIG. 13.--Plan of the Hall of Xerxes.]
The only other monumental works of Persian architecture are the tombs;
to those cut in the solid rock, of which there are some examples, we
have already referred. The most ancient tomb is that erected to Cyrus
the Elder at Pasargadae, and consists of a small shrine or cella in
masonry raised on a series of steps, inspired (according to Fergusson)
by the ziggurat or terrace-temples of Assyria, but on a small scale.
The tomb was surrounded on three sides by porticoes of columns. There
are two other tombs, one at Persepolis and one at Pasargadae--small
square towers with an entrance opening high up on one side, sunk
panels in the stone, and a dentil cornice, copied from early Ionian
buildings. (R. P. S.)
GREEK ARCHITECTURE
_Prehistoric Period._--We have now to retrace our steps and go back to
the prehistoric period of Greek architecture, to the origin and early
development of that style which sowed the seed and determined the
future form and growth of all subsequent European art.
The discoveries in Crete and Argolis have shown that Greek
architecture owes much less than was at one time supposed to Egyptian
and Chaldaean architecture; and although from very early times there
may have been a commercial exchange between the several countries, the
objects imported suggested only new and various schemes of decorative
design, and exercised no influence on the development of architectural
style. The remains of the palace at Cnossus in Crete, together with
the representations in fresco painting and other decorative objects,
show that whilst the lower part of the walls under the level of the
ground and up to a height of 5 ft. above were all built in well-worked
masonry, the upper portions were constructed in unburnt brick with
timber framing, which not only gave strength and solidity to the
walls, but carried the cross beams and timbers of intermediate floors
and the roof, and further, that the walls were always vertical, which
was not the case in Egypt or Chaldaea.
The principal remains discovered by Dr Arthur J. Evans (see CRETE) are
described by him as belonging to the later Minoan age, from which it
may be inferred they are the result of same centuries of previous
development. What, however, is most remarkable is the admirable
planning of the whole palace, the bringing together, under one roof
and in proper and regular intercommunication, of the numerous
services, which in a palace are somewhat complicated. The palace
measured about 400 ft. square, and was built round an open court,
nearly 200 ft. long by 90 ft. wide; as the same arrangement was found
at Phaestus, excavated by the Italian archaeologists, it may be
assumed to have been the Cretan plan. It was built on the crest of a
hill, and in the western or highest portion was the court entrance
from the agora to the megaron or throne-room, and the halls of the
officers of the state. In the lower portion facing the east (the rooms
in which were two storeys below the level of the court on account of
the slope of the hill) was the private suite of apartments of the king
and queen. All the services of the palace were at the north end of the
palace, where the entrance gateway to the central court was situated.
This northern entrance, Dr Evans points out, "represents the main
point of intercourse between the palace and the city on the one hand
and the port on the other." This is the only part of the palace in
which there is evidence of some kind of fortification, as the road of
access is dominated by a tower or bastion. Other provisions also in
the plan of the western entrance suggest that its passage was guarded
to some extent. In this respect the palace of Tiryns, excavated by Dr
Schliemann, presents an entirely different aspect; the whole
stronghold bears a singular resemblance to a fortified castle of the
middle ages; a high wall from 24 to 50 ft. thick surrounded the
acropolis, and the inclined paths of approach and the double gateways
gave that protection at Tiryns which at Cnossus was assured, as Dr
Evans remarks, by the bulwarks of the Minoan navy. The area on the
spur of the hill, on which the citadel of Tiryns was placed, was very
much smaller, but if we accept the forecourt at Tiryns as equivalent
to the great central court at Cnossus, there are great similarities in
the plans of the two palaces. The propylaea, the altar court, the
portico, and the megaron are found in both, and those details which
are missing in the one are found in the other. The discoveries at
Cnossus have enabled Dr Evans to reconstitute the timber columns, of
which the bases only were found at Tiryns, and the spur walls of the
portico of the megaron and the sills of the doorways at Tiryns give
some clue to the restoration of similar features at Cnossus; and if in
the latter palace we find the origin of the Doric column, at Tiryns is
found that of the antae and of the door linings, further substantiated
by the careful analysis made by Dr Dorpfeld of the Heraeum at Olympia.
The reconstruction by Dr Evans of the timber columns at Cnossus, which
tapered from the top downwards, the lower diameter being about
six-sevenths of the upper, has little historical importance (see
ORDER), so that we may now pass on to the next early monument of
importance, the tomb of Agamemnon, the principal and the best
preserved of the beehive tombs found at Mycenae and in other parts of
Greece. This tomb consists of three parts, the _dromos_ or open
entrance passage, the _tholos_ or circular portion domed over, and a
smaller chamber excavated in the rock and entered from the larger one.
The tomb was subterranean, the masonry being concealed beneath a large
mound of earth. The domed part, 48 ft. 6 in. in diameter and 45 ft.
high, is built in horizontal courses of stone, which project one over
the other till they meet at the top. Subsequently the projecting edges
were dressed down, so that the section through the dome is nearly that
of an equilateral triangle. Notwithstanding the great thickness of the
lintel (3 ft.) over the entrance doorway, the Mycenaeans left a
triangular void over, to take off the superincumbent weight,
subsequently (it is supposed) filled with sculpture, as in the Lions'
Gate at Mycenae. The doorway was flanked by semi-detached columns 20
ft. high, the shafts of which tapered downwards like those
reconstituted at Cnossus; the shafts rested on a base of three steps,
and carried a capital with echinus and abacus. These shafts carried a
lintel which has now disappeared; the wall above was set back, and was
at one time faced with stone slabs carved with spiral and other
patterns, of which there are fragments in various museums, the most
important remains being those of the shafts, of which the greater
part, which was brought over to England in the beginning of the 19th
century by the 2nd marquess of Sligo, was presented by the 5th
marquess to the British Museum in 1905. These shafts, as also the
echinus moulding of the capitals, are richly carved with the chevron
and spirals, probably copied from the brass sheathing of wood columns
and doorways referred to by Homer.
_The Archaic Period._--The buildings just referred to belong to what
is known as the prehistoric age in Greece; the dispersion of the
tribes by invaders from the north about 1100 B.C. destroyed the
Mycenaean civilization, and some centuries have to pass before we
reach the results of the new development. Among the invaders the
Dorians would seem to have been the chief leaders, who eventually
became supreme. They brought with them from Olympus the worship of
Apollo, so that henceforth the sanctuary of the god takes the place of
the megaron of the king. From Greece the Dorians spread their colonies
through the Greek islands and southern Italy. Later they passed on to
Sicily and founded Syracuse, and subsequently Selinus and Agrigentum
(Acragas). The prosperity of all these colonies is shown in the
splendid temples which they built in stone, the remains of many of
which have lasted to our day.
[Illustration: From Curtius and Adler's _Olympia_, by permission of
Behrend & Co.
FIG. 14.--Plan of the Heraeum. A, Peristyle; B, Pronaos; C, Naos; D,
Opisthodomus; E, Base of statue of Hermes.]
The earliest Greek temple of which remains have been discovered[2] is
that of the Heraeum at Olympia, ascribed to about 1000 B.C. Its plan
(fig. 14) shows that the enclosure of the sanctuary and its porticoes
in a peristyle had already been found necessary, if only to protect
the walls of the cella, built in unburnt brick on a stone plinth;
further, that the antae of the portico and the dressings of the
entrance were in wood; and, following Pausanias' statement relative to
the wood column in the opisthodomos, all the columns of the peristyle
were in that material, gradually replaced by stone columns as they
decayed, evidenced by the character of their capitals, which in style
date from the 6th century B.C. to Roman times. The ephemeral nature of
the materials employed in this and other early temples, and the risk
of fire, must have naturally led to the desire to render the Greek
sanctuaries more permanent by the employment of stone. But the Greeks
were always timid as regards the bearing value of that material, and
would seem to have imagined that unless the blocks were of megalithic
dimensions it was impossible to build in stone. This may be gathered
from the remains of the earliest example found, the temple of Apollo
in the island of Ortygia, Syracuse, where the monolith columns had
widely projecting capitals, the abaci of which were set so close
together that the intercolumniation was less than one diameter of the
column.
Following the temple of Apollo at Syracuse is the temple of Corinth,
ascribed to 650 B.C., of which seven columns remain _in situ_, all
monoliths, and the Olympieum at Syracuse. Nearly contemporary with the
latter is one of the temples at Selinus in Sicily, 630 B.C.,
remarkable for the archaic nature of its sculptured metopes. Of later
date there are five or six other temples in Selinus, all overthrown by
earthquakes; the temple of Athena at Syracuse, which having been
converted into a church is in fair preservation; an unfinished temple
at Segesta; and six at Agrigentum, built on the brow of a hill facing
the sea, one of which was so large that it was necessary to build in
walls between the columns.
In Magna Graecia, in the acropolis at Tarentum, are the remains of a
7th century temple and three at Paestum about a century later in date.
In one of these, the temple of Poseidon (figs. 15 and 16) the columns
which carried the ceiling and roof over the cella are still standing;
these are in two stages superimposed with an architrave between them,
and although there are no traces in this instance of a gallery, they
serve to render more intelligible Pausanias' description of that which
existed in the temple of Zeus at Olympia.
The temple of Assus in Asia Minor is an early example remarkable for
its sculptured architrave, the only one known, and in the temple of
Aphaea in Aegina (q.v.) we find the immediate predecessor of the
Parthenon, if we may judge by its sculpture and the proportions of its
columns.
So far we have only referred to the early temples of the Doric order;
of the origin and development of those of the Ionic order far less is
known. The earliest examples are those of the temple of Apollo at
Naucratis in Egypt, and of the archaic temple of Diana at Ephesus,
both about 560 B.C. The remains of the latter, discovered by Wood, are
now in the British Museum; they consist of two capitals, one with a
portion of a shaft in good preservation; the sculptured drum and the
base of one of the columns, inscribed with the name of Croesus, who is
known to have contributed to it; two other bases, and the cornice or
cymatium. The treasury of the Cnidians at Delphi was Ionic, judging by
the carved ornament enriching the cornice and architraves, and in the
Naxian votive column we have another early example of an early voluted
capital.
The tombs of Tantalais, near Smyrna, and of Alyattes, near Sardis,
belong to the same date as those we shall find in Etruria. The Harpy
tomb, now in the British Museum, built after 547 B.C., is the
predecessor of many other Lycian tombs of the 5th and 4th centuries,
to which we return.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Plan of the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum.]
As already pointed out, in the temple of Hera at Olympia (10th century
B.C.), we find the complete plan of an hexastyle peripteral Greek
temple, where columns originally in wood supported a wood architrave
and superstructure protected by terra-cotta plaques and roofed over
with tiles. The temple of Apollo at Syracuse, and the temple at
Corinth (7th century B.C.) represent the earliest examples in stone,
and in the temple of Poseidon at Paestum (6th century) are preserved
the columns of the cella which carried the ceiling and roof. The
structural development therefore of the temple was completed, and no
great constructional improvements reveal themselves after 550 B.C. The
next century would seem to have been chiefly directed to the
beautifying and refining of the features already prescribed, and it
was the traditional respect for, and the conservative adherence to,
the older type, which led the architects to the production of such
masterpieces as the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, which would have
been impossible but for the careful and logical progression of
preceding centuries.
The Parthenon (q.v.) at Athens represents the highest type of
perfection, not only in its conception but in its realization. It is
only necessary here to give a general description. It was designed by
Ictinus in collaboration with Callicrates, and built on the south side
of the Acropolis on a foundation carried down to the solid rock. The
temple, commenced in 454 B.C. and completed in 438 B.C., was of the
Doric order and raised on a stylobate of three steps; it had eight
columns in front and rear and was surrounded by a peristyle, there
being twenty columns on the flanks. It contained two divisions; the
eastern chamber was originally known as the Hekatompedos (temple of
100 ft.), that being the dimension of the cella of the ancient temple
which it was built to replace. The chamber on the western side was
called the Parthenon (i.e. chamber of the virgin). All the principal
lines of the building had delicate curves. The entablature rose about
3 in. in the middle to correct an optical illusion caused by the
sloping lines of the pediment, which gave to the horizontal cornice
the appearance of having sunk in the centre. The stylobate had
therefore to be similarly curved so that the columns should be all of
the same height. The columns are not all equidistant, those nearer the
angle being closer together than the others, which gave a greater
appearance of strength to the temple; this was increased by a slight
inclination inwards of all the columns. In order to correct another
optical illusion, which causes the shaft of a column, when it
diminishes as it rises, and is formed with absolute straight lines, to
appear hollow or concave, an increment known as the entasis was given
to the column, about one-third up the shaft. The columns were not
monoliths, like those of the earliest stone temples mentioned above;
they were built in several drums, so closely fitted together that the
joint would be imperceptible but for the slight discoloration of the
marble. The setting of the lowest drum of these columns on the curved
stylobate, with the slight inclination of the column, must have been a
work of an extraordinary nature, only possible with such a material as
Pentelic marble. The cella or naos was built to enshrine the
chryselephantine statue of Athena by Pheidias. In order to carry the
ceiling and roof there was a range of columns on each side of the
cella returning round the end. These columns probably carried an upper
range as in the temple of Poseidon at Paestum. The tympana of the two
pediments and all the metopes were enriched with the finest sculpture,
and were realized, designed, and executed by Pheidias and his pupils.
On the upper part of the cella wall and under the peristyle was the
Panathenaic frieze, of which, as also of the other sculptures, the
British Museum possesses the finest examples.
The Propylaea (q.v.), designed by Mnesicles and built 437-432 B.C.,
was the only entrance to the Acropolis. It was of the Doric order, and
consisted of a portico of six columns, the two centre ones being wider
apart, to allow of the road through, up which the chariots and beasts
for sacrifices ascended. The columns carrying the marble ceiling of
the vestibule were of the Ionic order; beyond them the wall was
pierced by three doorways, and on the other side and facing east was
another portico of six columns. The front entrance was flanked on the
left hand by a chamber known as the Pinacotheca, and on the right by a
chamber intended probably to be a replica but subsequently curtailed
in size in consequence of the proximity of another temple.
The Erechtheum on the north side of the Acropolis occupied the site of
three older shrines, which may account for its irregular plan. The
eastern portion was the temple of Athena Polias, with a portico of six
columns of the Ionic order. At a lower level on the north side was a
portico of six columns (four in front and two at the sides) leading to
the shrine of Erechtheus; the west front of this shrine had originally
a frontispiece of four columns _in antis_raised on a podium;
subsequently during the Roman occupation these columns were taken down
and reproduced as semi-detached columns with windows between. On the
west side was a court in which was the olive tree and the shrine of
Pandrosus (Pandroseion). At the south-west angle was the well-known
portico or tribune of the Caryatides. There was a small entrance
through the podium at the side, and stairs leading down to the shrine
of Erechtheus.
[Illustration: From a photo by Brogi.
FIG. 16.--Temple of Poseidon at Paestum.]
The only other building remaining on the Acropolis is the temple of
Nike Apteros, raised on a lofty substructure south-west of the
propylaea. It also was of the Ionic order, and belonged to the type
known as "amphiprostyle," with a portico of four columns in the front
and rear but no peristyle. The term "apteros" applied to the temple
and not to the goddess of victory.
In 430 B.C., shortly after the completion of the Parthenon, Ictinus
was employed to design the temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Bassae, in
Arcadia. This temple externally was of the Doric order, but, being
built in local stone, no attempt was made to introduce those
refinements which are found in the Parthenon. In the rear of the cella
is a second sanctuary with a doorway facing east; it was probably the
site of an ancient temple which had to be preserved, and this may
account for the fact that the temple runs north and south. The cella
is flanked by five columns of the Ionic order which are conntected by
spur walls to the cella wall. These columns carry an architrave,
frieze richly sculptured with figure subjects, cornice and wall above
rising to the roof. There was no ceiling therefore, and the interior
was probably lighted through pierced Parian marble tiles, of which
three examples were found. The Corinthian capital found on the site is
supposed by Cockerell to have belonged to the shaft between the two
cellas.
The same architect, Ictinus, was employed in 420 B.C. to rebuild the
hall of the mysteries at Eleusis on a larger scale. The hall was 185
ft. square, and its ceiling and roof were carried by seven rows of
columns with six in each row. The propylaea, which gave access to the
sacred enclosure at Eleusis, was copied from the propylaea at Athens.
The so-called lesser propylaea had some connexion with the mysteries.
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.
[Illustration: 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.