BASSAI,
SW Arkadia, Greece.
A precinct
sacred to Apollo Bassitas and site of the famous Doric
Temple of Apollo built in the late 5th c. B.C. it is located
7 km NE of the ancient city of Phigalia and is contiguous
to a second precinct, that of Kotilon, sacred to Artemis
Orthia and Aphrodite. The composite sanctuary (750 m
x 350 m) spreads over the S face of Mt. Kotilios: the
precinct of Kotilon (elev. 1226 m) reaches the peak,
Bassai lies below (elev. 1129 m). The god Pan is also
attested at the site and an ancient spring in the SW area
may have been sacred to him.
In 1812 an expedition led by Cockerell cleared the
Temple of Apollo. Excavations at Kotilon and Bassai
and restorations of the Apollo temple have been conducted intermittently since 1903. Finds show that dedications started ca. 675 B.C. and that the cults then flourished
through the 5th c. B.C. By ca. 350 B.C. activity rapidly
declined but persisted into Roman times.
Ca. 625 B.C. temples were constructed for Apollo, Artemis, and Aphrodite. Evidently, the temples dedicated to
Apollo and Artemis were identical in design and decoration (15 x 7 m, pronaos, cella, akroterion disks, antefixes with heraldic sphinxes). The pair of Temples to Artemis and Aphrodite (ca. 9 x 6 m) in Kotilon survived
throughout the history of the site; whereas the original
structure in Bassai was the first of four Temples to Apollo. Ca. 575 B.C. Apollo I was rebuilt and slightly enlarged (cella 12 m x 7 m, adyton 7 m, opisthodomos 3 m) and redecorated with a new set of architectural terracottas similar in design to those on the first temple. in
1970 foundations of Apollo II were discovered 10 m S of
the present temple, Apollo IV; the center lines of the
earlier and later temples are on approximately the same
N-S axis.
Ca. 500 B.C. a third and large-scale Temple to Apollo
was constructed of local limestone. it was subsequently
disassembled and its blocks were reused in the substructure for Apollo IV of the late 5th c. B.C. Apparently,
many essentials in plan and outward appearance of Apollo
IV were in fact derived from Apollo III of the late archaic period (proportions width to length of 1:2.6, disposition of 6 x 12 columns and thickened diameters of frontal columns).
Subtle refinements of design and construction in Apollo
IV include a plan which forms an isosceles trapezoid
(width of euthynteria is ca. 16 m but S is slightly wider
than N, with both lateral sides exactly equal in length,
ca. 40 m); in addition there are outward curvature in the
stylobate, precise jointing, and decoration of all risers of
the krepidoma with molded rebates at the lower edges
and raised, stippled panels above. Subtle adjustments
were made in column spacings and column proportions
and the Doric shafts are without entasis. Metopes of the
exterior Doric frieze and the two pediments were undecorated by sculpture; by contrast, a marble roof was
trimmed by antefixes and a richly carved and painted
raking sima; and the gables were surmounted by floral
akroteria. Within the peristyle a set of reliefs filled the
metopes of the Doric friezes across the pronaos and opisthodomos (preserved fragments BM 510-19 are all from
the S side) and a system of elaborately carved limestone
coffers adorned the ceilings of the pteromata.
The most splendid decoration of the temple was a
sculptured frieze which encircled the interior of the cella,
an arrangement which appears in Greek architecture for
the first time at Bassai. The slabs contain scenes of a Centauromachy (BM 520-30) and an Amazonomachy (BM
531-42). The design of the interior peristyle is unique:
in plan five columns of the ionic order are engaged to
each lateral wall by short spur walls, with the rearmost
pair being joined by spurs which run at 45° to the lateral
walls. Between this pair and on the center-line axis of the
cella there was a freestanding column which bore the
earliest known capital of the Corinthian order. Limestone
and marble were employed alternately throughout the interior: bases and shafts in limestone, capitals in marble
except for the ionic capitals in limestone above the diagonal spurs, frieze in marble, geison in limestone, and coffered ceiling in marble.
The adyton and the cella are divided only by the ionic
entablature which is carried across the cella on the Corinthian column. Within this area a doorway opens to the E.
Originally, it was closed to pedestrian traffic by a permanently fixed grill. The adyton was also coffered, but the
lozenges here differed slightly in shape from the patterns
used for ceilings of the cella and lateral niches.
The cult image stood before the Corinthian column;
no indication of the base remains on the pavement, but
in 1812 fragments of an akrolithic statue (BM 543-44)
were found in this part of the cella. The adyton may have
served to house a xoanon from the earlier temples.
No altar has been discovered at Bassai. However, other
outlying structures have been partially uncovered and include a base at the SW coiner of Apollo iV (perhaps for
the 4 m bronze statue of Apollo Epikourios), a stairway
in this vicinity, a rectangular foundation for a building
25 m NW of Apollo IV (perhaps to be identified as a
workshop) and miscellaneous other stretches of walls in
lower terraces to the SW of the temple.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliographical listings are in E. Meyer,
RE Suppl. VII 1030-32; in W. Dinsmoor,
Architecture of
Ancient Greece (1950) 364-65, & in F. Cooper, “Temple of Apollo at Bassae: New Observations on its Plan
and Orientation,”
AJA 72 (1968) 103-11; R. Carpenter,
The Architects of the Parthenon (1970) 142ff; U. Liepmann,
Das Datierungsproblem und die Kompositiongesetze am Fries des Apollotempels zu Bassae-Phigalia,
Ph.D. diss. (1970); U. Pannuti, “Il Tempio di Apollo
Epikourios a Bassai (Phigalia),”
Atti della Accademia
Nazionale dei Lincei, ser. 8, vol. 16, fasc. 4 (1971);
O. zur Nedden, “Apollo Epikurios,”
Aachener Kunstblatter 41 (1971) 18-20; H. Bauer,
Korinthische Kapitelle des 4. und 3 Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (1973) 1-80;
N. Yalouris,
Ἀνασκαφαὶ εἰστὸν ἐν Βάσσαις Φιγαλείας ναὸν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος,
AAA 6 (1973) 39-55.
Forthcoming: F. Cooper, “Two inscriptions from
Bassai,”
Hesperia (1975); id.,
Temples of Apollo at
Bassai.
F. A. COOPER