TEMPLUM
TEMPLUM It will be well to preface the important part of this
article, which relates to temple buildings, by a few remarks about the
strict meaning of the word
templum, and the
distinction originally existing between the words
aedes,
templum, sacellum, delubrum, and
fanum. That this distinction was confused by lax usage,
especially in poetry, and that it in time disappeared altogether, must of
course be admitted; but that it existed not merely in a very early period of
Latin is clear from the fact that Augustus marks it when he calls the Temple
of Apollo on the Palatine and that of Mars Ultor
templa, and others
aedes
(
Monum. Ancyr. 19: see below).
The word
templum is from the same root as the
Greek
τέμενος, i. e. some space cut off and
separated. Its augural signification was beyond a doubt its genuine Roman
use. The templum in augury had a twofold meaning: 1. The space of sky which
the augur marked off with his
lituus by
imaginary lines, the
cardo from north to south
and the
decumanus from east to west, thus
dividing the space observed into four regions (
Serv. ad Aen. 1.92; Varro,
L. L. 7.7). From this
augural
templum caeli comes the familiar
“caelestia templa” of Lucretius (
1.120, &c.), which, as Munro remarks, “conveys a
solemn and stately notion.” 2. The space of earth to be included
for observations, which was a rectangular space called
locus effatus, or more fully
locus effatus
conceptis verbis, i.e. a space bounded by points which he
announced aloud, naming (
conceptis verbis)
trees or other stationary objects as the limits for observation in each
direction. This space also was divided into four regions by lines (
cardo and
decumanus, as
above), and the observer (usually a magistrate, who
qua observer was the
auspex as
distinguished from the augur) sat at the point (
decussis) where these imaginary lines intersected (Varro,
L. L. 7.8;
Liv. 1.18;
Cic. de Div. 1.1. 7, 31). It
will be seen that in both these senses of the augural templum the idea of
cutting off (
τέμνω) is preserved, and also that the shape of the templum was
rectangular. Further, in the place where the observer was to sit (except
where there was, as at Rome, a permanently established
auguraculum: see Vol. I. p. 251
b), the observer pitched a tent [
TABERNACULUM], also quadrangular in shape, with a
single opening, commanding the spaces of earth and sky which formed the
templa. There has been some difference of opinion as to the aspect of this
tabernaculum. Regell's opinion seems to be
correct, that for observing lightning by the
templa in
caelo the tabernaculum looked to the south, but for observing
birds by the
templa in terra it faced the east,
whence, as in
Liv. 1.18, the south is on the
right hand, the north on the left (see Regell in
Jahrb. f. Philol. u.
Paedagog. 123.607 ff., and Mau's note in Marquardt,
Staatsverw. iii.2 403). The
tabernaculum was called
templum minus, and thus
we have a templum of real as well as of imaginary lines: so Festus (5.157),
“templum est locus ita
effatus” (by
[p. 2.773]imaginary lines)
aut ita
saeptus (by real enclosure) ut [ex] una
parte pateat angulosque adfixos habeat ad terram; “and Servius (
Serv. ad Aen. 4.200),” templum
dicunt non solum quod
potest claudi (by
imaginary lines) verum etiam quod palis aut hastis aut aliqua tali re (as in
a permanent auguraculum) et linteis aut loris (the linen or leathern tent)
aut simili re
saeptum est quod effatum est
(i.e. the imaginary lines are made real: see also Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, i.3 105). [For the
method of taking auspices, see AUSPICIA; and for
the connexion between the shape of the pomerium and the augural templum, see
POMERIUM pp. 443, 444.]
This use of templum for augury was, we cannot doubt, the original religious
sense of templum, and accordingly, in the extended meanings which the word
subsequently takes of consecrated spaces, and later (perhaps not till near
the end of the Republic) of buildings, it is still confined to such spaces
or buildings as have been “inaugurated” by the augurs, and
moreover the shape is still rectangular. Such inaugurated and consecrated
places were (1) those for the assembly of the senate,
curiae (Hostilia Pompeia, Julia) or actual temples of the
gods, since the senate could only transact business “in loco per
augurem constituto” (
Gel. 14.7); (2)
the Comitia Curiata and Centuriata (
Liv. 5.52;
V. Max. 4.5); (3) the Rostra (
Cic. in Vatin. 10.24;
Liv. 8.14); (4) a temple in the ordinary sense, i.
e. a house built for a god and inaugurated as well as consecrated. For the
building of a temple, or indeed for any permanent inaugurated templum, it
was necessary first that the ground should not only be
effatus (i.e. have pronounced limits), but also be
liberatus; that is to say, any prior claims upon the
ground not merely of private ownership, but of
fana or
sacella which might once
have been upon it, had to be abrogated [
EXAUGURATIO], and the ground and building assigned
by the augurs to that deity to whose service it was to be dedicated, and
next the temple itself was consecrated by the pontifices (cf.
Serv. ad Aen. 1.446;
Liv. 1.55).
Templum, however, in this sense of a god's
house, was probably a comparatively modern equivalent for
aedes or
aedes sacra. Jordan (in
Hermes, xiv. pp. 567 ff.) presses this
somewhat far, giving
aedes as the proper term
for a Roman or Italian temple, and
templum for
one in the colonies; and explaining the passage above mentioned from the
Mon. Ancyr. on the theory that Augustus called the
temples at Rome, which were built on publicum solum,
aedes, while those to Apollo and Mars, built on his privatum
solum, he called
templa. In this same passage,
however, he speaks of “duo et octoginta
templa deum,” and it seems to us a truer view that the
use of templum for aedes was coming in before the end of the Republic, and
that Augustus in speaking by name of pre-existing temples uses the term
which originally described them, but in those which he has just built uses
the term now in vogue. Cicero certainly uses the word
templum as “temple” frequently (e.g.
de
Div. 1.2, 4); and the figurative use in Lucretius (
4.264;
5.103) of the
mouth as “templum linguae” and the breast as “templum
mentis” implies that
templum was
then the term in common parlance for a building enshrining some deity. It
must be noticed that the round shape which we see in the Aedes Vestae and
some others did not properly belong to a
templum, which should follow the rectangular augural temple; and
with this agrees the fact alluded to above, that this round aedes was
consecrated by the pontifices, but not inaugurated by the augurs, and hence
not a possible meeting-place for the senate (
Serv. ad Aen. 7.153;
Gel. 14.7). It
is a significant fact that the shrine of the Dea Diva in the Arval grove,
which like that of Vesta belongs to the most primitive Roman religion, was
also a round building, and it might reasonably be inferred that the round
shape was the earlier form for a god's house, just as the circular hut built
round a central pole is the early architecture for a human habitation, and
that the rectangular temple came later in with the augural
templum.
The word
delubrum is derived from the same root
as
lavabrum (or
labrum),
pollubrum, &c., and
thus meant originally a place of purification (for we must certainly reject
the derivation from
delibrare,
“to strip the bark and make a wooden image” ): that such a rite
of purification belonged to the old unroofed
loca
sacra, where there might be merely an enclosure with an altar or
shrine, there can be no doubt; and from this aspect of purification (which
in later temples appears in the
ἀπορραντήρια or
labra) such a
sacred space might be called
delubrum, i.e. the
dedicated plot of ground within which were rites of purification, and so in
the Argean procession “ad aedem dei Fidii in delubro ubi aeditimus
habitare solet” the delubrum is clearly the sacred precinct, as
distinguished from the aedes, but in time
delubrum, like
sacellum, was used
both for the sacred enclosed spot and the shrine upon it; cf. “regiis
temporibus delubra parva facta” (Varro ap. Non. 494), where the
delubra are contrasted with the later and more stately aedes or templum. We
are here speaking only of strict definition. In poets no distinction between
aedes, templum, and
delubrum is observed: even Cicero's usage is open to doubt,
though it may be remarked that the passages cited by Marquardt as showing a
promiscuous use of the words (
N. D. 2.43, 83, and various
passages in the Verrine orations) are speaking of Sicilian, not of Roman
temples. In later prose, though not in Livy, all distinction vanishes (cf.
Plin. Nat. 35.144; 36.26).
Though
fanum is found in a general sense for any
locus sacer consecrated by the pontifices,
but not inaugurated [
FANUM], and
so often means sacred buildings, aedes or sacella, as well as sacred areas
such as
luci, yet it is also true, as Jordan
points out, that the strict use of
fanum did
not include aedes or actual houses of the gods at Rome, but only “loca
sacra cum aris [or later also” cum aediculis “
sine tecto;
” and that when it is used of temples it belongs only to temples of
non-Roman deities: this explains the origin of
fanaticus, which was first applied to such “fanatic”
priests as those of Isis. (See further on this subject Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, iii.2 151 ff.; and
especially Jordan in
Hermes, 14.567 ff.) [
G.E.M]
TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE.
Greek Temples.--Among the Greeks, as among most Pagan races,
the temple was not a building
[p. 2.774]in which a
congregation met and worshipped, but was rather regarded as the house and
treasury of the god.
1 In the most primitive times temples (in the later sense of the word)
seem to have been very rare, their place being taken by an altar in the open
air, or by a sacred stone (
βαίτυλος) which
was both the symbol of some divine presence and the place of sacrifice. See
Prof. Robertson Smith,
Religion of the Semites, lect. v. The
kingly heroes of Homer, such as Odysseus, themselves played the part of a
priest, and offered sacrifice to Zeus Herkeios on the altar in the
fore-court of their palaces. Such an open-air altar was discovered by Dr.
Dörpfeld in the courtyard of the palace at Tiryns; and this
domestic altar survived at the entrance of Greek houses long after actual
temples had been built [see
DOMUS]. Other primitive forms of temples were natural caves in the
rock, or hollow trees, the former being usually associated with the cults of
Chthonian deities. The word
μέγαρον, which
is sometimes applied to temples of Chthonian deities, is supposed to be
derived from a Phoenician word meaning a cavern or cleft in the rock.
The next stage appears to have been the construction of a small cell-like
building, consisting of a mere
cella or
σηκὸς without any columns or
subdivision into more than one chamber. The most remarkable examples which
still exist of this early form of temple are to be seen in the Island of
Euboea, especially one near Karystos, on an elevated site on Mount Ocha,
overlooking the sea. This is a rectangular stone building, about 40 feet by
24 feet (externally) in plan. In one of the long sides is a small central
doorway, formed of three large blocks of stone, between two slit-like
windows. The roof consists of large thin slabs, each projecting beyond the
course below, till they meet at the ridge. Light and air are given by a
hypaethral opening in the stone roof--a long narrow slit, 19 feet long by 18
inches wide. The height of the walls internally is 7 feet. The worship of
Hera was the special cult in this part of Euboea.
The words used by the Greeks to denote temples are chiefly these:
ναός, or in Attic
νεώς, equivalent to the Latin
aedes, the “house” of the god;
ἱερὸν frequently has a more extended meaning, including not
only the
ναὸς but also the sacred enclosure
around it,
τέμενος (
Thuc. 4.90) or
ἱερὸς
περίβολος. In other cases
ἱερὸν
and
ναὸς are used as equivalent terms, as,
e. g. by Pausanias (
8.45.3), where he records
the building of the Temple of Athene Alea at Tegaea:
Ἀθηνᾶς τῆς Ἀλέας τὸ ἱερὸν τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐποιήσεν Ἄλεος:
χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον κατασκευάσαντο οἱ Τεγεᾶται τῇ Θεῷ ναὸν
μέγαν. A peculiar phrase is used by Homer (
Hom. Il. 9.404) to denote the Temple of Apollo
at Delphi: he calls it the
λάϊνος οὐδός,
“stone threshold,” as if using a part for the whole building.
Other words--such as
μέγαρον, ἄδυτον, ἀνάκτορον,
σηκός--seem to have been taken from terms originally used for
parts of domestic buildings, meaning “the hall,”
“the private chambers,”
“the royal house,”
“the cell or inner chamber.” The words
μέγαρον and
σηκὸς μυστικὸς
were especially applied to the abnormal Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis,
which was also called the
τελεστήριον, in
reference to the initiations which there tools place. Strictly speaking, it
was not a temple at all. The real Temple of Demeter, which stood near the
Hall of Initiation, was a very much smaller building.
Returning to the development of the Greek temple, the next stage after the
simple
σηκός, such as that on Mount Ocha,
was probably a building with a prostyle portico, constructed mainly of
unburnt brick with wooden columns closely resembling the hall or
μέγαρον of a pre-Homeric palace, such as that
which Dr. Dörpfeld excavated within the Acropolis of Tiryns. The
accompanying figures (1 and 2) show the probable
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Fig. 1. Restoration of the front of the principal Hall (μέγαρον) of the prehistoric Palace at
Tiryns.
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Fig. 2. Plan of the Hall at Tiryns.
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[p. 2.775]appearance of this hall when perfect. Both in plan
and in its façade it is clearly the prototype of the later stone
temples of the Greeks. The walls were of unburnt brick, covered with hard
fine stucco decorated with painting; the lowest courses of the wall were of
stone, to a height of about two feet above the ground, in order to prevent
injury to the unbaked clay of the bricks from rising damp. A sort of
survival of this structural stone plinth existed even in the latest temples
of the Greeks, which were wholly built of marble: the lowest course
immediately above the pavement is usually very much deeper than the rest of
the masonry, as if marking a change of material even when none exists. The
columns both of the portico and of the inner chamber were of wood, each
resting on a carefully levelled block of stone.
This use of crude brick for the walls and wood for the columns appears to
have survived in many cases till very late, more especially in the private
houses of the Greeks. Dr. Dörpfeld has pointed out that even the
Heraion at Olympia was originally built in this primitive
fashion, but that stone columns were introduced one by one as the wood
pillars decayed. Thus we see columns of many different dates among the
existing remains. Pausanias (
5.16) mentions one
ancient wooden column as still existing
in situ
in the Heraion at the time of his visit. Of the walls nothing remains but
the stone plinth, carefully levelled to receive the first course of crude
bricks, so the original wall probably was never rebuilt in stone. The
entablature was apparently of wood, like the columns, as no remains of stone
cornice or architrave were found.
Vitruvius (
2.3) describes the careful manner in
which crude bricks (
lateres) were made by
mixing gravel, pounded pottery, and chopped straw with clay which had been
long exposed to the weather. He records that a decree of the city of Utica
ordained that none of these bricks should be used till they had been
inspected by a magistrate to see if they were thoroughly dried, and had been
kept the required time, which was five years, after they had been moulded.
[
LATER]
In 1888 an interesting discovery was made by Dr. Halbherr at Gortyn in Crete.
Excavations on the site of the
Pythion, or
Temple of the Pythian Apollo, revealed some remains of an early temple built
of large blocks of stone without any cement. The building, which from the
inscriptions cut on the outside of its walls is apparently a work of the 7th
or 6th century B.C., consisted simply of one
rectangular chamber, a mere
cella, without
columns or
pronaos; though in later times a
pronaos was added in front of the entrance.
A very interesting point about this primitive temple was the fact that it
had been lined internally with plates of bronze, like the great
“beehive tomb” at Mycenae, and other Greek structures of
prehistoric date. The bronze pins which fixed these plates still remain on
the internal face of the great blocks of which the walls were built. (See
Halbherr in
Monumenti antichi, Part I., 1889; published by
the Acad. dei Lincei.)
The last stage of the development of the Greek temple was a building with
walls and columns wholly of stone or marble, such as those of which many
examples still remain.
Vitruvius (
3.2) classifies temples according to
the arrangement of their columns in the following manner:--I.
Ναὸς ἐν παραστάσι,
in antis, with two columns between the
antae of the projecting side walls (see fig. 3).
[
ANTAE]
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Fig. 3. Plan of the Temple in antis.
Temple of Themis at Rhamnus in Attica, with a marble throne on each
side of the door.
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II.
Πρόστυλος,
prostylos, with four columns in front. III.
Ἀμφιπρόστυλος,
amphaiprostylos, with four columns at each end (see
figure 4).
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ZZZ
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Fig. 4. Plan and façade of the Ionic, amphiprostyle
Temple of Nike Apteros, on the Acropolis of Athens.
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IV.
Περίπτερος,
peripteros, with columns along both sides and ends
(see figure 5). V.
Δίπτερος,
dipteros, with a double range of columns all round
(see figure 6). VI.
Ψευδοδίπτερος,
[p. 2.776]pseudo-dipteros, with one
range of columns only, but placed at the same distance from the cella wall
as the outer range of
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Fig. 5. Plan of the large hexastyle peripteral Temple at Paestum;
showing the pronaos and posticum at the ends of the cella, the internal rows of columns and the
stairs leading to the gallery over the aisles.
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Fig. 6. Plan of the Temple of Apollo Didymaeus, near Miletus, a
decastyle, dipteral temple of the Ionic order, with pronaos and prodomus, or inner vestibule, and, at the other end of the
cella, an opisthodomus.
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the dipteral temple (see fig. 7). VII.
Ψευδοπερίπτερος,
pseudo-peripteral, is another variety which
Vitruvius does not give in his list (3.2),
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Fig. 7. The great octastyle, pseudo-dipteral Temple in the agora of
Selinus in Southern Sicily, with a small inner sanctuary (adytum) at the end of the cella.
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though he mentions it later on (4.8.6). This has no complete
columns along the sides, but half or “engaged” columns built
into the side walls of the cella. The great Temple of Zeus at Agrigentum is
an example of this, dating
c. 500 B.C. or earlier.
This plan was more commonly used by the Greeks for tombs, such as the lion
tomb at Cnidus, than for temples. Among the Romans it was very frequently
used, as, for example, in the Temples of Concord, Vespasian,
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Fig. 8. Plan of the so-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis in the Forum
Boarium at Rome. The black shows the part built of tufa: the
hatching shows the harder travertine used at points where special
strength was needed.
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[p. 2.777] Faustina, and the so-called Temple of Fortuna
Virilis in Rome. The main object of this plan was to give greater width to
the cella (see fig. 8).
The last class named by Vitruvius is the
Hypaethros, which appears to be an arbitrary class of his own. He
describes the hypaethral temple as having ten columns at each end, and being
dipteral along the flanks. Inside the cella are two tiers of columns, one
above the other, supporting the roof, in the middle of which is an opening
to the sky. As an example he gives the octastyle Temple of Olympian Zeus in
Athens. The real fact is that the hypaethral temple does not form a separate
category, as any of Vitruvius' last three classes might be hypaethral, the
two tiers of columns being common in Greek peripteral temples, as,
e.g., in the Parthenon, and in the great temple at
Paestum, where some of the upper range of internal columns still exist.
It should be observed that Vitruvius' remarks about Greek temples must be
accepted with great caution. He evidently knew very little about them,
except perhaps some of the largest Ionic temples in Asia Minor. His
ignorance on the subject is shown in many ways, and especially by his
statement that the Doric style was unsuited and little used for Greek
temples (see
Vitr. 4.3, § § 1,
2). In studying Vitruvius' very interesting work, it should always be
remembered that he was rather a practical architect than a learned
antiquary, and that he had little or no personal knowledge of Greek
buildings.
Vitruvius also gives different names to temples according to the number of
columns on their fronts, namely:--
Τετράστυλος, tetrastyle, with four columns.
Ἑξάστυλος, hexastyle, with six columns.
Ὀκτάστυλος, octastyle, with eight columns.
Δεκάστυλος, decastyle, with ten columns.
A peripteral temple could not be less than hexastyle, nor a dipteral temple
less than octastyle.
The sacred Hall at Eleusis, which was quite abnormal in plan, had a portico
with twelve columns in front. It is very rare to find a Greek temple with an
uneven number of columns at its ends. The second temple in point of size at
Paestum has nine columns at each end, together with a central row of columns
down the middle of the cella. The most probable explanation of this unusual
arrangement is that the temple was dedicated to two deities, and therefore
was divided longitudinally by a row of pillars. The great pseudo-peripteral
Temple of Zeus at Agrigentum has seven engaged columns at each end. These
are almost the only examples of Greek temples with an uneven number of
columns at the ends. The number of the columns on the flanks varies very
much, but is usually more than double that of the fronts. Thus, for example,
the following temples--which are all Doric,
hexastyle, peripteral--have on their flanks--Temple at Aegina and
Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus, 12 columns; Temple of Theseus in Athens, the
so-called Temple of Hera at Agrigentum, and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia,
13 columns; great temple at Paestum, 14 columns; temples at Corinth and
Bassae, 15 columns; Heraion at Olympia, 16 columns.
Of
octastyle temples, the Parthenon, and the great
Temple of Zeus at Selinus, have on their flanks, 17 columns; the Corinthian
Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, 20 columns; the Ionic
decastyle Temple of Apollo at Didyme had 21 columns.
The only other Greek decastyle temple was the Heraion at Samos: the number of
columns on its sides has not yet been certainly discovered.
Vitruvius (
3.3) gives the following list of names
for the various classes of temple intercolumniations or spans, measured from
column to column in the clear. It should, however, be remembered that this
list refers only to late Greek or Roman temples, not to buildings of the
best Greek period, about which Vitruvius seems to have known nothing. The
figures in this list give the intercolumniations in terms of the diameters
of the shafts at the lowest part.
The larger Greek temples were divided into different parts. The inner space
within the front portico was called the
πρόναος; that at the rear was the
posticum (see fig. 5); the principal chamber, which usually
contained the statue of the deity, was the
cella or
σηκός: it was
frequently divided into a “nave” and “aisles” by
two ranges of internal columns. In some cases, as in the Parthenon and the
temple at Corinth, a chamber at the back was walled off from the rest of the
cella: this was the
ὀπισθόδομος; it was
used as a treasure chamber. A similar chamber in the Temple of Apollo at
Delphi formed an inner sanctuary,
ἄδυτον:
in it was placed the gold statue of Apollo, the mystic Omphalos, and other
sacred objects which only the priests were allowed to approach.
One or more staircases were frequently introduced into the cella. In the
Temple of Zeus at Olympia the stairs (
ἄνοδος
σκολιὰ) led to the
ὑπερῷον, or
gallery over the aisles, whence a good view was obtained of the colossal
gold and ivory statue by Pheidias (see
Paus.
5.10). In the so-called Temple of Concord at Agrigentum, the two
stone staircases which led to the roof are still in perfect preservation.
Similar staircases in the two other temples at Agrigentum still exist,
though they are not so complete (see also fig. 5). In many cases, as in the
Parthenon, these stairs appear to have been made of wood.
In the Temple of Concord (so called) at Agrigentum the doorways at a high
level still exist, which gave access to the space between the wooden roof
and the ceilings of the
pronaos and
posticum. In some temples a vestibule,
prodomus, existed behind the
pronaos (see fig. 6).
Stylobates and Steps.--The base or
stylobate of a Greek temple consisted of two or more steps, the
height of which was not in proportion to a man's stature, but was fixed by
the height of the building. The usual number of steps in Doric temples was
three, but a few temples, such as the so-called Theseum in Athens and the
[p. 2.778]Heraion at Olympia, only had two. In the
larger temples, such as the Parthenon, the height of the
“riser” of the steps is too great for practical purposes of
approach, and so smaller intermediate steps were introduced at certain
places to give convenient access to the raised peristyle.
The
cella floor is usually raised two or three
steps above the peristyle. At Paestum the floor of the cella of the great
temple is raised to the very unusual height of 4 ft. 9 in. above the top
step of the stylobate. In many cases the central portion of the cella floor
is slightly sunk below the level of the “aisles:” this was
probably intended to receive any rain-water which descended through the open
hypaethrum, or, in some cases, to form a shallow tank for water in order to
correct the natural dryness of the air in temples which contained a
chryselephantine statue, the ivory of which was thought to suffer from the
want of some moisture in the atmosphere (
Paus.
5.11). In the Temple of Zeus at Olympia the reverse was the case, the
surrounding country being damp and marshy, and so the shallow sinking in
front of Pheidias' statue was kept full of oil, which was also used as a
lubricant for the ivory when it was cleaned by the official
φαιδρυνταί. This receptacle was made of black
marble with a kerb or rim of white Parian.
The paving of temples was usually formed of large slabs of stone or marble:
those in the Parthenon are squares of white marble 1 foot thick and about 4
feet square. In some cases the internal floor was made of a fine hard
cement, as, e. g. in the temple at Aegina, where the pronaos and the central
portion of the cella are paved with cement coloured red. So also the Heraion
at Olympia had in the cella a paving of red cement.
The pronaos of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, built 469-457 B.C., was paved with a curious early kind of
mosaic, formed, not of squared
tesserae, but of
natural pebbles of different colours selected from the bed of the river
Alpheus. These are set in a fine white cement on a thick bed of concrete.
The design consists of Tritons and sea-monsters within a conventional
border. This is almost the only example of mosaic of the Greek period that
has been found, though mosaics of the Roman period in Greece are far from
rare.
In many cases an open gutter, cut out of long blocks of stone or marble, was
placed round the lowest step of the stylobate to carry off the rain-water
which fell from the eaves of the roof. The water from the roof was
discharged through lions' heads placed at intervals along the
cymatium or top member of the cornice, after the
fashion of a mediaeval gurgoyle. Vitruvius (
3.5.15) recommends that only those lions' heads should be pierced
which came over the centre of the peristyle columns, to diminish the amount
of falling water that the rain could blow towards the cella wall, each
column acting as a shelter. The other (unpierced) heads were merely for
ornament. The rain--water from the gutters was carried in pipes or open
channels to tanks which were built or cut in the rock at various places near
the temple: several exist in the Acropolis of Athens close by the Parthenon.
The great Ionic temples of Asia Minor were in some cases raised on a lofty
stylobate, consisting of many steps extending all round the building. The
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, dating from the time of Alexander the Great,
was constructed with no less than fourteen steps leading up to its
peristyle: this great height was, however, exceptional. The decastyle Temple
of Apollo at Didyme had only three steps, and the erection of temples on
lofty stylobates was rather a Roman than a Greek custom.
Roofs.--Greek temples were roofed with simply framed
“principals” and strong rafters, covered with tiles of
baked clay, or, in the more magnificent buildings, with slabs of white
marble jointed and fitted with the closest accuracy, so that not a drop of
water could penetrate. According to Pausanias (
5.10), marble roof-tiles were invented by Euergos of Naxos. The
magnificent group of buildings on the Acropolis of Athens were all roofed in
this costly manner. Even the stone Temple of Apollo at Bassae was roofed
with marble tiles, a fact which Pausanias specially records (8.41) as one of
the chief glories of the building. In no part of a Greek temple was more
elaborate care lavished than in the formation of these marble tiles
(
σωλῆνες,
tegulae); each was “rebated” at
top and bottom to give the closest possible fit, and each side joint was
covered by an overlapping “joint-tile” (
καλυπτήρ,
imbrex), the edges of which were ground down to
an absolute accuracy of surface. At the eaves the end of each joint-tile was
covered by a
καλυπτὴρ ἀνθεμωτός,
antefixa, an ornament which usually was
sculptured with a lotus or acanthus relief. In the temple at Bassae each
joint-tile was worked out of the same block of marble as the adjacent
roof-tile, involving an immense amount of labour and waste of marble.
Ceilings.--The peristyle, and in some cases, the pronaos and
posticum, had ceilings under the wooden roof formed of great slabs of stone
or marble decorated with a series of deeply-sunk panels or coffers (
lacunaria), all worked in the solid, and ornamented
with delicate enriched mouldings round the edge of each offset. With regard
to the wider span of the cella, it is uncertain to what extent inner
ceilings were constructed. Probably in some cases wooden ceilings with
square
lacunaria were used; in other cases the
rafters of the roof and the underside of the marble tiles were left visible,
as is shown by the fact that marble tiles have been discovered with traces
of painted ornament on their lower surface. The whole visible woodwork,
whether rafters or internal ceiling, was decorated with gold and colour,
like the rest of the building. Vitruvius (
4.2,
2) speaks of roof-panels painted blue by the
wax encaustic process.
Screens.--Various parts of a Greek temple were usually shut
off by elaborate bronze screens or grills which were frequently gilt. Thus,
for example, in the Parthenon, tall bronze screens closed the
intercolumniations of the pronaos and posticum. Another screen surrounded
the chryselephantine statue of Athene, and the “aisles” of the
cella were screened off in the same way from the central space in front of
the statue. In some cases these metal screens rested on a marble plinth, but
more commonly they
[p. 2.779]were fixed by melted lead into
the paving of the temple.
Doorways.--Even in cases where there was a polished marble
door architrave, as in the Parthenon and the Propylaea in Athens, it appears
to have been usual to fix an inner jamb-lining of wood. This wooden
architrave and the valves of the doors were both covered with richly-worked
reliefs in gold and ivory, at least in the richer temples. Descriptions of
this costly decoration are given in the treasure lists of the Parthenon (see
C. I. A. 2.708). The heavy gold plating and ivory reliefs
on the doors of the Temple of Athene at Syracuse were stripped off by
Verres, as Cicero states in his impeachment. This gold plating made the
doors very heavy, and so they were hung, not on hinges, but on massive
bronze pivots, which revolved in sinkings in the lintel and sill of the
opening. Each valve, in the case of a large doorway, usually ran on a bronze
wheel, the marks of which are plainly visible in the Parthenon and in many
other temples, on the marble threshold and pavement.
Temple Treasuries (
thesauri,
θησαυροί).--In some temples, as e. g. the
Parthenon and the early temple at Corinth, a special chamber, the
opisthodomus, was cut off from the rest of the cella
as a store-place for the rich treasures in gold and silver which belonged to
the temple or had been deposited there as if in a bank. In the Parthenon the
opisthodomus appears to have been fitted up with shelves and cupboards.
Inventories of the Parthenon treasures cut on marble which still exist
mention various objects as being on the first, second, or third shelf, if
that is the true meaning of the arrangement according to
ῥυμοί. Other portions of the Parthenon treasure
were kept in the pronaos and in the cella,
ἑκατόμπεδον or
Παρθενὼν
proper (see Newton and Hicks,
Attic Inscriptions in the Brit.
Mus., Part I.). In other cases, when there was no separate
treasure-room, part of the pronaos or posticum was screened off from the
central passage and used as a store-place.
In later times some of the most venerated temples, such as those at
Delphi
2 and Olympia, grew so rich in cups, tripods, statuettes, and other
votive offerings made of gold and silver, that there was not sufficient room
to hold them in the temple itself, and so a number of separate little
treasure-houses were built within the sacred precincts. These were often
named after various Greek states whose offerings were kept within them. At
Olympia a long row of these
thesauri have been
discovered: in design they were like small temples, the cella having either
a
prostyle portico or a portico
in antis.
Materials and Construction.--The earlier temples were chiefly
built of stone, even in districts where marble was plentiful. Very coarse
local stones were frequently used, but whether the stone was fine or coarse
it was invariably coated with a thin skin of very fine hard cement, usually
made of lime and powdered marble or white stone, mixed with white of egg,
milk, or some natural size, such as the sap of trees. This beautiful
substance, which was almost as hard, white, and durable as marble itself, is
similar to the
caementum marmoreum, the making
of which is described at length by Vitruvius (
7.3, § § 6-8). The use of this marble cement not
only protected soft stone from the weather and made the temple look as
handsome as if it had been built of real marble, but it also had the
advantage of forming a good, slightly absorbent surface for painted
decoration, which seems always to have been applied to Greek buildings. For
this reason, even when the temple was built of solid marble, it was not
uncommon to coat it with a thin skin or
priming of
marble dust cement for the use of the painter.
In some of the early stone temples, especially in Sicily and at Olympia,
terracotta mouldings and enrichments of a very elaborate kind were used to
decorate the building. In some cases the whole of the entablature was simply
built in squared blocks of stone, and then wholly covered with a casing of
moulded terracotta, very carefully jointed and fixed with bronze pins. These
terracotta casings were painted with elaborate and delicate patterns in blue
and red, brown and white ochres. [
TERRACOTTAS] In other cases the mouldings of the entablature and
the like were roughly cut in the coarse stone, and then the fine finished
mouldings and enrichments were worked in the marble-dust cement which coated
the whole stone-work.
By degrees marble came into use for building temples; at first in a very
sparing way, being used only for the sculptured reliefs, and not always for
the whole of those. In one of the temples at Selinus no marble is used in
the building except a few small bits employed for the nude parts of the
female figures in the metopes. All the rest of the sculpture is of the local
limestone. At Bassae the use of marble is more extended; the whole of the
sculpture and the roof-tiles are of marble. At Aegina the sculpture and only
the lower courses of tiles were of marble. A further extension of its use
was in the last Temple of Apollo at Delphi, in which the columns of the
front were of marble, all the rest of the building (except the sculpture)
being of local stone. The Alcmaeonidae of Athens were the contractors for
this temple; and though their contract was only for stone, yet they were
liberal enough to supply these marble columns for the front of the temple
(see
Hdt. 5.62). Lastly the whole temple from the
floor to the roof was built of marble, and in the 4th century B.C. the great
temples of Asia Minor were built of marble, even in cases where no marble
quarries were at hand. Coloured marbles, though largely used by the Romans,
were but little employed in Greek temples.
3
In Athens the dark grey Eleusinian marble was used in some cases for steps,
pavements, or plinths; and in the Erechtheum the main external frieze was
made of this dark marble, ornamented with figures carved in white marble in
half-relief, and attached to the ground with bronze pins. With this
exception nothing but
[p. 2.780]white marble was used in the
Athenian temples after the Persian war, at least above the ground-line. The
native limestone (
πῶρος) was commonly used
for foundations. Many different kinds of decorative materials were used:
rosettes and other ornaments of gilt bronze were frequently attached to the
eyes of the volutes of Ionic capitals, and in the centres of the panels of
the
lacunaria of the ceilings. Bits of coloured
glass or enamels of brilliant tint were inlaid in the interstices of the
plait-band ornaments of Ionic capitals and bases. The Erechtheum especially
was enriched with bronze and enamel ornaments of many kinds. Rings of gold
ornament decorated the bases of the Ionic columns of the Artemision at
Ephesus, and we read of the joints in a temple wall at Cyzicus being marked
with lines of gold inlay (see Pliny,
Plin. Nat.
36.98).
In the marble masonry of the finest Greek temples extraordinary care was
taken to fit each block closely to the next. Each block was first cut and
rubbed to as true a surface as possible, and then, after it was set in its
place, it was moved backwards and forwards till by slow grinding it was
fitted with absolute accuracy to the block below it. The drums of the
columns were ground true in the same way by being revolved on a central pin
fixed in a wooden socket, which was let into the centre of the bed of the
drum. Small projecting blocks of marble (
ὦτα) were left by the masons, first to give a hold to the loops
of rope while the drum was being raised to its place, and secondly these
projections formed a sort of handle by which the great drum of marble could
be made to revolve. Of course, with such perfect fitting as this, no cement
or mortar of any kind was used, and with time and pressure the adjacent
blocks seem in many cases to have, as it were, grown together, so that when
a portion of the wall is thrown down a fracture will often run diagonally
through two blocks of marble rather than separate the two at the joint. In
the absence of cement great labour and much metal were expended in fastening
each block with bronze or iron clamps and dowels, all carefully fixed with
melted lead. Every block in the Parthenon, for example, is not only clamped
to the adjacent blocks in the same course, but is fixed by upright dowels to
the courses above and below,--a refinement of precaution, which to modern
builders would seem quite needless; there being no side thrust, and the
blocks being of such great size and weight as to be in no danger of any
movement, except perhaps during an earthquake.
Optical refinements.--Nothing in the way of human workmanship
can be more wonderful than the perfection and minute accuracy with which
every part of a Greek temple of the best period was executed. The very
elaborate system of curved lines and inclined
axes, which the highly sensitive eye of the Greek thought
necessary to the beauty of a building, shows, more clearly than anything
else, how far superior to ours were the aesthetic perceptions and the
delicately trained eyesight of the ancient Greek. The general principle of
the optical corrections used by the Greeks is explained by Vitruvius, though
he appears not to have been acquainted with all their refinements. He writes
(6.2.1): “Acuminis est proprium providere ad naturam loci aut usum aut
speciem
detractionibus vel
adjectionibus temperaturas efficere, uti, cum de
symmetria sit detractum aut adjectum, id videatur recte esse formatum,
in aspectuque nihil desideretur.”
A careful study of existing Greek temples, and especially of the Parthenon,
has shown that the following classes of optical corrections were used.
4
I. Entasis (
adjectio) of columns (
Vitr. 3.3.13): the lines of the shafts, instead
of diminishing regularly from bottom to top, are slightly convex, giving a
very delicate swelling to the central part of the shaft. A column formed
with straight lines appears to get thinner than it ought towards the middle,
owing to the effect of the light behind it, which appears, as it were, to
eat into or encroach upon the column, especially midway between the top and
bottom. This
entasis is the only one of the many
optical refinements of the Greeks which is used in modern buildings.
II. The columns at the angles of peripteral temples were made slightly
thicker than the rest, and the intercolumniations at the angles were
reduced. The object of this was to prevent the angle columns from appearing
thinner than the others on account of their being seen against a brighter
background than those which showed against the cella walls--a dark object
always appears smaller against a bright ground, such as a sunny sky, than if
seen with a dark ground behind it.
III. The main horizontal lines of the temple were formed slightly convex, in
order to prevent an appearance of weakness and sinking in the middle. Thus
the steps and floor of the stylobate, and the horizontal lines of the
entablature, have a very slight and delicate curve, the rise varying, e.g.
in the Parthenon, from 1/450 to 1/750 of the length.
IV. An inward slope of all vertical lines and planes to give an appearance
of
stability. The columns were not set upright, but
all sloped inwards towards the building. The cella walls were built
“battering;” that is, thicker at the bottom than at the
top. Even the principal flat surfaces of the capitals and entablature were
made so as to slope inwards.
V. In some cases when the point of sight is near, and the moulding high up,
as with the capital of an
anta, the chief planes of
the moulding slope
forwards instead of inwards, to
correct the excessive foreshortening which otherwise would prevent the
vertical flat surfaces from being seen from below.
A very interesting inscription has been discovered at Lebadea in Boeotia,
giving the specification for the partial rebuilding of a temple there to
Zeus. It gives many curious details about the construction of the building,
and contains the following clause about the optical corrections which were
to be used:
τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ὅσα μὴ ἐν τῇ
συγγραφῇ γεγράπται κατὰ τὸν κατοπτικὸν νόμον καὶ ναοποίκον
ἔστω,--“as concerns other matters not written in the
specification, let them be done according to the
[p. 2.781]optical rules for the construction of temples” (see
Choisy,
Études Épigraphiques sur l'Architecture
Grecque, p. 173
seq.).
Fig. 9 shows in a very exaggerated form the most important optical
corrections in the Parthenon, as discovered by Mr. F. C. Penrose.
|
Fig. 9. Diagram showing the various optical corrections used in
the Parthenon.
|
Each block of marble is worked accurately so as to form its proper proportion
of these delicate curves, which, e. g. in the entablature, amounts only to a
rise of 2 inches in 100 feet of length.
The general system of design in a Greek temple is very different from that of
such a building as a Gothic cathedral. In the latter the
module or unit of scale has some relation to the height of the
human figure, and great size is gained by
multiplying parts, not by merely
magnifying
the scale. In a Greek temple the
module or unit is
the diameter of the external columns,
5 and a large peripteral temple may be exactly like a small one with
all its parts magnified. Thus in the largest temples the doorway, magnified
in proportion to the size of the columns, has no relation to the human
height; and in details, such as the entablature, a large cornice will have
no more members than a small one, but merely each member increased in size.
Beautiful and unrivalled in execution as Greek architecture is, this want of
adaptability, which comes from the use of a single external order only, is a
very real practical defect.
Methods of Decoration in Greek Temples.
Sculpture.--In Doric temples the usual parts which were
decorated with sculpture were the
pediments or
triangular gables at the ends: these usually contained groups of figures in
relief or in the round. The
metopes, or panels
between the triglyphs over the architrave, were filled with reliefs: in some
cases, as in the Parthenon, every external metope contained a relief; in
other cases only, those on one or both ends. The celebrated Parthenon frieze
(
ζωοφόρος) was set within the peristyle
at the top of the cella wall. At Bassae the frieze was inside the cella,
over the “engaged” columns which projected from the side walls
of the cella, and there were also sculptured metopes inside the peristyle.
In Ionic and Corinthian temples, which had no triglyphs and metopes, a
continuous sculptured frieze was usually carried along the main entablature.
The
Artemision at Ephesus was not only decorated with
pedimental sculpture and an external frieze, but a number of its columns had
their lower drums sculptured with life-sized figures in relief--the
columnae caelatae of Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 36.95. In addition to this some
of the columns were set on square sculptured plinths. Even the older temple
to which Croesus was a liberal benefactor had columns decorated with reliefs
in the same way.
Some Greek temples, such as that at Bassae and the Heraion at Olympia, were
constructed with a series of recesses separated by engaged columns along the
side walls of the interior of the cella. These were designed to hold single
statues of the deities. The celebrated Hermes of Praxiteles stood in one of
the shrine-like recesses of the Heraion at Olympia. The more celebrated
temples, especially those which stood on the site of some great agonistic
contest--such as Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia--were crowded with votive
statues, both inside the cella and in the portico and peristyle. At Olympia
and Delphi, before the Roman spoliation, the statues in and around the
temples must have been numbered by the thousand. A very large proportion of
these were of bronze, in many cases thickly plated with gold. Even in
Pliny's time the sacred periboli at Olympia and Delphi still contained fully
3,000 statues each (
H. N. 34.36): and at the time of
Pausanias' visit to Delphi they must have been more numerous still (see his
long account of them 10.8-15, 18, 19, and 24). He names nearly 150 statues
at Delphi as being worthy of special notice.
The principles of composition which were applied to the sculpture on Greek
temples were mainly these:--In the pediments the interest of the motive
usually converged towards the centre. In a continuous frieze the interest
was more distributed; in the Parthenon frieze it culminates in the central
group over the main entrance. In the metopes combats were favourite
subjects, giving strongly-marked diagonal lines of composition, which formed
a pleasant contrast to the vertical lines of the triglyphs. When a
continuous frieze was sculptured with battle scenes, as is the case at
Bassae, the composition formed a series of zigzag lines which gave a
continuous flow of action. In all cases great care was taken by the Greek
sculptor to make his work harmonise with its architectural surrounding, very
unlike modern sculpture on buildings, which usually has no more relation to
its position than if it were a mantel-piece ornament.
Painting.--Rich painted decoration in brilliant colours seems
to have been used to ornament all the Greek temples. Even the sculpture was
[p. 2.782]painted, either wholly or simply set off by a
coloured background, and enriched with borders and other patterns on the
drapery. Accessories, such as weapons, trappings of horses and the like,
were usually of gilt bronze. The mouldings of the entablatures, capitals,
and other parts were all picked out in red, blue, and gold, with very minute
and elaborate patterns painted on the larger members, in the coffers or
panels of the
lacunaria, and on the cross-beams
of marble which supported the great ceiling slabs over the peristyle.
Certain enriched mouldings, such as the “bead and reel,” appear
to have been nearly always gilt, and in almost all the patterns of the
richest temples thin bands of gold were used to separate and harmonise the
brilliant tints of colour.
The interior of the temple walls was often covered with large paintings of
figure subjects: in the Parthenon, for example, the pronaos contained a
painting of the rock Aornus and the fissure which drew into it birds flying
over it. In the cella were portraits of Themistocles and Heliodorus (see
Paus. 1.2,
37):
and Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 35.101) records
that in the portico of the Parthenon was a painting by Protogenes of Caunus,
representing the sacred triremes Paralus and Ammonias. Similar pictures
decorated the internal walls of most Greek temples.
Votive shields of gilt bronze were frequently attached to the architraves of
Greek temples, as was the case with the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia, and that of Apollo at Delphi (
Paus.
5.10,
2, and 10.19, 3). Part of the
Parthenon architrave was decorated with hanging wreaths or festoons of
flowers worked in bronze. The positions of these and of the shields are
still marked by the stumps of the bronze pins which fixed them to the
marble. In some cases sets of votive armour and weapons were hung to the
cella walls, both inside and out, as well as
ex-votos of many other kinds.
Orientation.--Greek temples are usually placed with their
axes east and west: the front is commonly
towards the east. There are, however, exceptions to this rule: the Temple of
Apollo at Bassae stands north and south, but has on its east flank the
unusual feature of a side door, placed near the statue of the god--possibly
to allow the rays of the rising sun to strike the statue of Apollo, who was
there worshipped as the deliverer from a fearful pestilence which had
devastated the neighbouring city of Phigaleia, about the middle of the 5th
century B.C.
Greek temples of the historic and autonomous period were built in two styles,
Doric and
Ionic. The Corinthian style
belongs to a later period.
Doric Temples.--In the mainland of Greece, in Magna Graecia,
and in Sicily, the Doric style was the first to be developed. Almost all the
existing Greek temples in these countries are Doric. The chief
archaisms or points of difference between the early
and the fully-developed Doric temples are these:--In the older examples the
columns are proportionally shorter and thicker, the architrave is heavier,
the intercolumniation is closer, the diminution of the shafts of the columns
is proportionally greater; the abacus of the capital is shallow and
wide-spreading, the echinus of the capital is formed with a more bulging
curve. Entasis and other optical refinements are used in a limited and
imperfect way. The shafts of the columns are as far as possible monolithic;
marble is used very sparingly or not at all.
The largest number of early Doric temples which still exist are in Sicily; at
Syracuse, Agrigentum, Selinus, and Segesta. Another example of very early
date is the temple at Corinth. Of the later, fully-developed Doric, the
chief examples are in Athens, and at Bassae in Arcadia.
The temple in Aegina occupies an intermediate position in point of date. With
regard to the oldest existing temples it is impossible to fix any exact
date; there is, however, little doubt but that the two earliest temples at
Selinus, and one in Syracuse, of which very little more than two columns now
exist, are not later than the end of the 7th century B.C. The latest Greek
Doric temple of which any remains still exist is probably that of Athene
Alea at Tegaea, which was designed by Scopas in the early part of the 4th
century B.C. (see
Paus. 8.45).
The main characteristics of the Doric style are these--columns without bases,
with shallow flutings not separated by a fillet. The capital consists of a
square
abacus resting on a slightly curved
cushion-like member, which is called the
ἐχίνος (
echinus), from its
resemblance to the shell-fish popularly called a sea-urchin. The architrave
which rests on the abaci of the columns is plain, without any sinkings or
fasciae, such as are used in the Ionic
style. Above the architrave comes the frieze, which is divided into
triglyphs (
τριγλύφοι), and metopes
(
μετὰ ὀπάς). As Vitruvius quite
correctly points out (4.2), the Doric order is a survival in stone of a
primitive method of construction in wood.
The grooved triglyphs were copies of the ends of the tie-beams of the roof
principals. The holes in the upper course of the wall in which the tie-beams
rested were called (
ὀπαί), and hence the
intermediate spaces were the
μετ᾽ ὀπαί,
metopes. In the early wooden buildings the metopes
were frequently left open to admit light and air (see Eur.
Iphig. 113); and in domestic buildings they probably served
as an exit for the smoke from the central hearth (
ϝεστία) in the middle of the
μέγαρον or hall. In later times the metopes were closed and
decorated with painting or sculpture.
Above the Doric frieze was the cornice, the third and last part of the
entablature: this was very simple, consisting mainly of a deep overhanging
block with a plain flat surface called the
corona, and on its
soffit or under-side a
series of
mutules, covered with three rows of three
circular projections,
guttae. The mutules were
survivals in stone of the ends of the small rafters, which showed above the
ends of the tie-beams. The top member of the cornice,
cymatium, was originally the upturned edge of the eaves'
tiles, and was pierced at intervals to allow the rain-water to escape (see
fig. 10).
The description already given of the plans and general arrangement of Greek
temples applies to those of the Doric style, except that no Doric
decastyle temple appears to have been built, though
the dodecastyle portico of the Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis had columns
of the Doric order. This, however, was not, as is mentioned
[p. 2.783]above, a temple, but rather a great hall or
μέγαρον.
|
Fig. 10. Drawing to show the construction of the entablature of a
Doric temple of the 5th century B.C., and
the manner in which it supported the timbers of the roof. One of the
pierced lions' heads for rain-water is shown on the top-member
(cymatium) of the cornice.
|
The method in which Greek temples were lighted is a rather difficult problem:
windows were not used till Roman times, and it appears fairly certain that
some form of opening in the roof (
ὀπαῖον,
hypaethrum) was the usual way in which light
was admitted into the cella.
6 Prof. Cockerell found at Bassae one of the marble roof-tiles which
had formed the border to some such opening. A raised rim or kerb was worked
on the tile so as to prevent water dripping from the roof into the interior.
The existing circular
hypaethrum in the dome of
the Pantheon in Rome shows the great aesthetic beauuty of such a method of
lighting; the inconvenience from rain falling on to the marble paving is
comparatively slight.
After a long-established custom of sacrificing on altars in the open air,
there was probably a survival of sentiment in favour of having some part of
a temple
sub divo. Both religious and poetical
notions have almost always closely associated the notion of the visible sky
with the abode of God. Support is given to the hypaethral theory of lighting
by a curious passage of Justin,
24.8, who
relates that when Delphi was attacked by the Gauls the Pythia and the
priests cried out that they saw Apollo descending through the roof opening
of the temple--“eum se vidisse desilientem in templum per aperta
culminis fastigia.” An ingenious theory was invented by Mr. James
Fergusson, that the hypaethrum or
ὀπαῖον
was not over the central space of the cella, but that there was one on each
side over the aisle galleries; the light being admitted sideways, through
windows like those of a mediaeval clerestory (see Fergusson,
The Parthenon, 1883). There is, however, little real
evidence to support this theory, and the explanation would not apply to
those numerous temples which had no “aisles” or internal
columns to support a gallery.
The general appearance of the façade of a Doric temple is shown in
the annexed figure (No. 11) of the temple at Aegina, as restored by
|
Fig. 11. The façade of the Doric, hexastyle, peripteral
temple in Aegina, restored from the existing remains by the late
Prof. Cockerell.
|
Cockerell from the existing remains. The pediment has fallen, and the
sculpture is now at Munich, but most of the columns are very perfect. The
date of this temple is probably about the middle or latter part of the 6th
century B.C.
It should be observed that some temples of the Doric style had internal
columns of a different order. The columns in the opisthodomus of the
Parthenon were probably Ionic. At Bassae the internal columns of the cella
were Ionic, and at Tegea it is probable that the columns of the pronaos and
posticum were Ionic, while those inside the cella were Corinthian (see
Paus. 8.45.3
seq.). The Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis has a
similar combination of the Doric with the Ionic style.
In the earlier temples all the columns seem to have been Doric, as we see in
the great temple at Paestum, where the internal columns still exist.
The so-called
Temple of Demeter--or, more correctly, the
Σηκὸς μυστικός--at Eleusis, was a
completely different building from ordinary Greek temples, as it was a great
hall of meeting for those initiated into the mysteries of Demeter, Kore, and
other Chthonian deities. It has recently been excavated and plans of the
successive structures made with great care and skill by Dr.
Dörpfeld (see
Fouilles
d‘Éleusis, Athens, 1889: cf. also
Paus. 1.38).
The latest building was a large square hall containing six rows of seven
columns each. On three sides, there were two doorways, six in all. The
fourth side, which was built against the scarped face of the hill, had no
entrance on the ground--floor. It appears probable that the building was in
two stories.
7 On the ground-floor eight tiers of step-like seats were
[p. 2.784]placed against all four walls; the lines of seats
being broken only by the doorways. In front was the great Doric dodecastyle
portico built by Philo in the 4th century B.C. The plan of the whole
building is Oriental rather than Greek in character. It closely resembles
the “Hall of the Hundred Columns” in the palace of Darius and
Xerxes at Persepolis. Dr. Dörpfeld discovered remains of two
earlier and smaller buildings of similar plan on the same site.
The sacred temenus was approached through an inner and an outer propylaeum;
the larger, outer one, of Roman date, is a close copy of the propylaeum of
the Athenian Acropolis. In front of the outer gateway was a small
amphiprostyle temple of Artemis, some remains of which still exist. (See
Bull. Cor. Hell. 1.1885.)
The following are the principal Doric temples of which remains still exist,
arranged as nearly as possible in chronological order:--
Syracuse, Island of Ortygia, Temple of Artemis, hexastyle,
very archaic, scanty remains. 7th century B.C., or
even earlier.
Selinus (Sicily), three temples on the Acropolis, all
hexastyle, with 19, 14, and 13 columns respectively on the flanks, of local
limestone, very early in style. 7th cent.
Syracuse, Ortygia, Temple of Athene, hexastyle, now built into
the cathedral. Late 7th cent.
Selinus, great Temple of Zeus in the Agora (see fig. 7),
octastyle, with 17 columns on the flanks: never finished. 7th cent.
Corinth, hexastyle, with 15 columns on the flanks; only 7
columns now remain. Late 7th cent.
Segesta, Sicily, hexastyle, the peristyle
perfect, but the cella wholly gone, probably unfinished. 6th cent.
Agrigentum, Sicily, the great Temple of Zeus,
heptastyle, with 14 columns on the flanks,
pseudo-peripteral, slight remains. 6th cent.
Aegina, hexastyle, with 12 columns on the
flanks; very perfect (see fig. 11). 6th cent.
Paestum, Lucania, the so-called Temple of
Poseidon (see fig. 5), hexastyle, with 14 columns on the flanks, very
perfect. 6th cent.
Delphi, Temple of the Pythian Apollo, hexastyle,
peripteral; designed by Spintharus of Corinth soon after the burning of the
previous temple (the fourth on that site) in the year 548 B.C. Second half
of the 6th cent.
Agrigentum, Sicily, three hexastyle temples, two
of them very perfect. Late 6th or early 5th cent.
Selinus, the middle temple on the Agora.
c. 500 B.C.
Assos, Asia Minor, hexastyle, with sculpture on
the architrave, very rude in style, scanty remains.
c. 480 B.C.
Athens, so-called Temple of Theseus, hexastyle, with 13
columns on the flanks, very perfect.
c. 465 B.C.
Olympia, Temple of Zeus, built by Libon of Elis,
hexastyle, with 13 columns on the flanks; little remains standing. 469-457
B.C.
Olympia, the Heraion, a mixture of many dates,
mostly destroyed, hexastyle, with 16 columns on the flanks.
Athens, the Parthenon, octastyle, with 17 columns on the
flanks, still fairly perfect, built by Ictinus. 450-438 B.C.
Selinus, hexastyle temple in the Agora. Middle of 5th cent.
Sunium, Attica, hexastyle, a few columns only
remain. Middle of 5th cent.
Bassae, Temple of Apollo Epicurius, hexastyle, with 15 columns
on the flanks, built by Ictinus, still fairly perfect.
c. 440 B.C.
Rhamnus, Attica, Temple of Nemesis, hexastyle, peripteral; and
Temple of Themis, cella with portico
in antis,
and walls of polygonal masonry, a late survival of this early method of
building (see fig. 3). Middle of the 5th century.
Eleusis, the Hall of the Mysteries, with a dodecastyle
portico, which is a later addition.
c. 440-220 B.C.
Tegea, Temple of Athene Alea, built by Scopas,
hexastyle, with 13 columns on the flanks; date soon after 393 B.C.
Paestum, enneastyle temple, and a small hexastyle temple,
probably built by native Lucanian architects in the 4th cent. B.C.
Ionic Temples.--The main points in which the Ionic order
differs from the Doric are these:--The columns have bases, and the capitals
are decorated with volutes and a moulded abacus, instead of the simple
echinus and plain abacus of the Doric style. The whole entablature is more
elaborate, the architrave being divided into receding planes or bands
(
fasciae), and the members of the cornice
more numerous and elaborate. The small cubical projections called
dentils, which are set closely along the
fully-developed Ionic cornice, are one of the chief characteristics of the
style, though not always present in Athenian examples. Besides these
important differences of design, the whole character of an Ionic temple is
more light and graceful than that of a Doric building. Thus Vitruvius
fancifully compares the Doric order to the proportions of a man, and the
Ionic to those of a woman (
Vitr. 4.1, §
§ 6, 7). The columns are more slender, and so in proportion taller;
the diminution and entasis are less. The intercolumniation, or distance from
column to column, is wider, giving a lighter effect to the whole building.
The flutes on the columns are separated by flat strips or
“fillets,” and the members of the mouldings are much more
largely enriched with carving.
No very early example of an Ionic temple is now in existence; but some very
primitive Ionic capitals, which have recently been found deeply buried on
the Athenian Acropolis, show that even in Attica the Ionic style, though in
an undeveloped form, was used before the Persian invasion. The earliest
Ionic temple in Greece proper, which existed till modern times, was a very
graceful little building on the Ilissus, close by Athens, but this was
destroyed about a century ago. Luckily it is well illustrated in Stuart and
Revett's valuable work on Athens. It was a tetrastyle, amphiprostyle
building, and from some of its details, especially the absence of dentils in
the cornice, seemed a sort of link between the Doric and Ionic styles. It
was probably built soon after the Persian invasion, about 475 B.C. The
somewhat similar little Temple of Nike Apteros on the Acropolis, which has
been carefully rebuilt and is now in a very perfect state, belongs to a
rather later date, probably about the middle of the 5th century B.C. It is a
mere shrine for a single statue, the cella being little over 12 feet square;
and it possesses the remarkable peculiarity of having no front wall to the
cella, but only two square pilasters to carry the architrave (see fig. 4).
The open end of the cella was closed by a bronze screen fitted in between
the pilasters and the
antae.
Large and magnificent as are the great Ionic temples of Asia Minor, none of
them can approach the beauty of the Athenian
Erechtheum, either in delicate richness of detail or
[p. 2.785]in minute perfection of workmanship. The
Erechtheum, which stands to the north of the Parthenon, was rebuilt towards
the end of the 5th century on the site of a very primitive temple of Athene
Polias, which was burnt by the Persians in 480 B.C. It is a very complicated
building, containing a group of many different shrines, and is quite unlike
any other Greek temple. The main cella, which had a hexastyle portico
towards the east, was subdivided by cross walls, and floors in several
different chambers at various levels. Owing to this cella having been gutted
to make it into a Christian church, the original plan is now a matter of
some doubt. All that is certainly known is that some part, probably the
eastern portion of the cella, was the shrine of Athene Polias, and contained
a very sacred ancient
ξόανον or wooden
statue of the goddess. This statue is referred to in the official title of
the temple as given in an existing inscription of the year 409 B.C., when the building was still in progress; the
title is
ὁ νεὼς ὁ ἐμ πόλει ἐν ᾧ τὸ ἀρχαῖον
ἄγαλμα. Another part of the temple was called the
Ἐρεχθεῖον, or shrine of Erechtheus, the
mythical ruler of Athens, whose presence was symbolised by a living snake
which was kept in the building (
Hdt. 8.41, and
Plut.
Themis, 10). A third portion of the cella
was the
Κεκρόπειον or shrine of Cecrops.
The building or its temenus also contained the spring of salt water and the
olive-tree which were supposed to have been produced by Poseidon and Athene
during their contest for the sovereignty of Attica (see Pausanias,
1.26.5
seq.). On the north of the cella is a very beautiful
tetrastyle portico, at a much lower level than the eastern portico: in a
vault under the portico floor are traces of the salt spring and the marks
made by Poseidon's trident--
σημεῖον τῆς
τριαίνης--which were shown to Pausanias. On the opposite or south
side of the main cella is the well-known Caryatid portico, supported by six
graceful female figures, one of which is now in the British Museum. The
entrance was by a side door in this little porch, leading down by a small
flight of steps to the lower level at the west end. In the west wall a
doorway gave access to a long sacred enclosure called the
Πανδρόσειον in honour of Pandrosos, the one
faithful daughter of Cecrops. In this court probably stood the sacred olive
and an altar to Zeus Herkeios (sée Dionys., quoting Philochorus,
de Deinarcho, 3). The three windows, which till recently
existed in the west wall of the cella over the door, were insertions of a
late date, probably of the time of Constantine, when the temple was made
into a church. The apse, which was then built at the other end,
unfortunately caused the destruction of the east portico, and in fact the
whole building was gutted to make it into a single chamber.
The Erechtheum is richer in detail than any other Ionic temple, and is also
quite alone in the minute delicacy of the execution of all its ornaments and
mouldings. The capitals were decorated with a band of lotus pattern below
the necking: the volutes were enriched with ornaments of gilt bronze, and
delicate plaited mouldings, both on the capitals and bases, were inlaid with
bits of jewel-like enamel. All the mouldings and reliefs were decorated with
gold and colour. The whole work was extraordinarily elaborate and costly,
and so took many years to execute. It appears not to have been completely
finished till after the close of the Peloponnesian war. A very interesting
inscription, with a report of its exact state in 409 B.C., is now in the British Museum (see Newton and Hicks,
Greek Inscriptions in British Museum, i. p. 84).
The following is a list of the chief Ionic temples of which some remains
still exist:--
In Greece proper:--
Athens: the temple of Nike Apteros and the Erechtheum on the
Acropolis.
Olympia: the circular Philippeion, with 18 Ionic
columns outside, and, inside the cella, engaged columns of the Corinthian
order: similar in plan to the Roman Temple of Vesta shown in fig. 13.
In Asia Minor:--
Sardis: temple of Cybele, octastyle, with
columns 60 feet high, of which only three remain, date about 500 B.C.
Xanthus in Lycia: Heroon of unknown dedication,
a small tetrastyle, peripteral building on a lofty
podium. Its sculpture is now in the British Museum. The date
is doubtful, but it is probably not earlier than
c.
400 B.C.
The Troad: Temple of Apollo Smintheus, octastyle,
pseudo-dipteral, with very close (pycnostyle) intercolumniation. Most of the
existing building seems to date from a period probably about 400 to 350 B.C.
Samos: Temple of Hera, decastyle, dipteral (see
Paus. 7.4, and Vitruv. vii. Praef. 12). The
existing temple is of the 4th cent. B.C. An earlier temple on the same site
was built in the 7th cent. B.C. by Rhoecus of Samos; Herodotus mentions it
as the largest temple he had seen (see 3.60, 2.148, and 1.70). The existing
remains were first excavated by the Dilettanti Society in 1812. (See
Antiq. of Ionia, i. p. 64; and
Bull. Cor.
Hell. iv. p. 383.)
Magnesia ad Maeandrum: Temple of Artemis
Leucophryne, hexastyle, pseudo-dipteral, built by Hermogenes about 350 B.C.
(See Vitruv. vii. Praef. 12.)
Teos: Temple of Dionysus, hexastyle, also built
by Hermogenes about 350 B.C. (See> Vitruv. vii. Praef. 12; and 4.3,
1.) At 3.3, 8 Vitruvius mentions this temple as an example of
eustyle intercolumniation. He goes on to say that
its architect Hermogenes was the first to invent the pseudo-dipteral plan
for a hexastyle temple by omitting the second (inner) range of columns, and
so giving a wider ambulatory round the cella for shelter from rain for a
crowd of people. (See
Antiq. of Ionia, Part 4.1881.)
Priene: Temple of Athene Polias, hexastyle, very
similar to the temple at Teos; it was built in the second half of the 4th
cent. B.C. and was dedicated by Alexander the Great, as is recorded in the
following inscription, which was discovered during the excavations of the
Dilettanti Society:--
Βασιλεὺς Ἀλέξανδρος
ἀνέθηκε τὸν ναὸν Ἀθηναίη Πολίαδι.
Branchidae near Miletus: Temple of Apollo
Didymaeus; decastyle, dipteral (see fig. 6). This and the temple at Samos
were the only two Greek decastyle temples. That of Apollo Didymaeus seems
never to have been completed. Vitruvius (vii. Praef. 16) mentions it as one
of the four greatest temples of the Greeks, and that its architects were
Paeonius of Ephesus and Daphnis of Miletus, about 350 B.C. Pausanias (
7.5) says that, though unfinished, it is one of the
wonders of Ionia. According to Strabo, p. 634, it was left roofless on
account of its excessive span. (See
Gaz. des Beaux Arts,
xiii. p. 497, and 14.1876.)
[p. 2.786]
Ephesus: Temple of Artemis (Artemision),
octastyle,
dipteral, built during the reign of Alexander the
Great, 356-323 B.C.
In many respects this last was the most magnificent and celebrated of all
Greek temples; the last temple built on the site ranked as one of the seven
wonders of the world. It should, however, be remembered that the great size
of the Artemision was a very important factor in its celebrity. In point of
beauty of workmanship and minute refinement of detail it was far surpassed
by the earlier Greek temples, such as the Parthenon and the Erechtheum.
Between the 7th century B.C. and the time of Alexander the Great three
successive temples were built on the same site. 1. The original temple built
by Theodorus of Samos, the partner of Rhoecus, who was architect of the
Heraion in Samos, probably about the year 630 B.C. 2. The temple which was
begun by Chersiphron and finished by his son Metagenes about the end of the
6th century B.C. This temple was burnt by an incendiary, named Herostratus,
the night when Alexander the Great was born, in 356 B.C. 3. The last temple
built during the reign of Alexander was designed by his favourite architect
Dinocrates. (See Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 36.98;
and
Vitr. 10.2, § § 11, 12;
vii. Praef. 12; and ii. Praef. 1-4). It should be observed that much
confusion exists in the statements of Vitruvius, Pliny, and other authors as
to the architects of the temple, owing to their not distinguishing clearly
between the three successive buildings.
Considerable remains of the last temple, and pavements and foundations of the
two earlier buildings, were discovered in the years 1870-6 by Mr. Wood; but
unfortunately no satisfactory account or plan of his discoveries has been
published. Mr. Wood discovered after long search that the Artemision,
surrounded by its extensive temenus, stood, not within the city of Ephesus,
but nearly a mile outside the Coressian gate. It had eight columns on the
fronts, and probably twenty on the flanks: the stylobate, which consisted of
no less than fourteen steps, measured at the lowest step about 418 by 240
feet. The columns were 56 feet high, and about 6 feet in diameter above the
base. As has been already mentioned, some of the columns and their pedestals
were enriched with sculpture, as were also the
antae, of very varying degrees of excellence, some being well
designed and graceful in motive, while other reliefs are extremely coarse
and clumsy. None of the sculpture is remarkable for any high degree of
finish or delicacy. The main entrance from the pronaos led, not directly
into the cella, but into a large vestibule, part of which was probably shut
off for use as a treasury. The temple was enormously rich in statues and
votive offerings of all kinds in gold and silver; its doors were most
magnificently decorated with plating of gold and ivory. A fragment of one of
the bases of the main order, now in the British Museum, has remains of an
ornament of pure gold fixed with lead between the double
tori. The inside of the cella was decorated with a large
mural painting of Alexander Ceraunophorus by Apelles and many other
pictures, and contained a large number of fine statues by Scopas, Timotheus,
Leochares, and other sculptors of the Asia Minor School. The temenus was
very large, enclosed by a massive wall, and planted with groves of trees. It
formed one of the most sacred sanctuaries of Asia Minor, and was the resort
of great numbers of men who were flying from punishment for some misdeed. By
degrees the bounds of the
asyloum or sanctuary were
enlarged, until they not only extended up to the walls of Ephesus, but even
included part of the city, which thus became the resort of evil-doers. and
was a great source of trouble to the citizens. Augustus therefore restricted
the limit of the space which had the privileges of asylum.
The British Museum also possesses some very interesting fragments which
belonged to the second temple, begun about the middle of the 6th century, to
which the Lydian king Croesus was a liberal benefactor. These fragments show
that the earlier temple had some of its columns decorated with life-sized
reliefs after the same fashion as the last building. Some of these were
given by Croesus, whose name and dedication were inscribed on the upper
torus of one of the bases, some fragments of which are now in the British
Museum. One remarkable peculiarity of this 6th-century building was that the
large cymatium, which formed the top member of the main cornice, was
decorated with figures in relief, which can have been hardly visible owing
to their small scale and great height from the ground. See A. S. Msurray,
Journ. of Hell. Sltudies, vol. x. p. 1
seq.
Graeco--Roman Temples.
There are also two very magnificent Ionic temples in Asia Minor which date
from the Roman period: these are at
Aphrodisias
in Caria, and at
Aizani in Phrygia; both are octastyle,
pseudo-dipteral buildings, with fifteen columns on the flanks. The
elaborate, but somewhat coarse and extravagant, sculptured ornaments show
that the date of these two very similar temples is probably not earlier than
the 1st or 2nd century A.D. Each was surrounded with an extensive peribolus
wall, within which a smaller space is enclosed by an open
porticus or cloister; in the centre of this the temple itself
stands. The temple at Aizani is remarkable for having a fine vaulted crypt
under the cella floor, twenty-eight feet wide and fourteen feet high,
probably used as a treasure chamber. (See Le Bas,
Voyage Arch. dans
la Grèce, &c. ed. Reinach, 1888; Texier and
Pullan,
Asia Minor, 1865; and the various
treatises published during the last hundred years on
The Antiquities
of Ionia by the Dilettanti Society, vols. i. to iv. See also
Newton,
Travels in the Levant, 1865, and
History of
Discoveries at Halicarnassus, &c., 1862.)
The Corinthian Order was the latest development of Greek
architecture, and did not come into use till a period of decadence had set
in. It is an elaborated form of Ionic, with capitals, enriched by two tiers
of acanthus leaves instead of the Ionic volutes. Vitruvius (
4.1,
9) relates a pretty
and fanciful story about the origin of the Corinthian capital, which was
supposed to have been invented by Callimachus; cf.
Paus. 1.26
ad fin. The oldest existing example of the
Corinthian order is the choragic monument of Lysicrates, in Athens, of 334
B.C., and even this is Corinthian of an
incompletely developed types.
[p. 2.787]With the Romans the
Corinthian order was a very favourite style for temples, but no purely Greek
Corinthian temple is known to exist, though many dating from Roman times are
to be found in various parts of the Hellenic world.
The most famous example is the great Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, which
was designed by a Roman architect named Cossutius for Antiochus Epiphanes
about 170 B.C. (see
Vitr. 3.2,
8, vii. Praef. 15; and
Paus.
1.19). The existing remains have been described by F. C. Penrose
in the second edition of his
Athenian Architecture, 1888. The
earlier temple was begun about the year 530 B.C. by the Peisistratid tyrants
of Athens: it was designed on a very large scale with columns about 7 feet
in diameter, but was never completed. Mr. Penrose, during his excavations in
1887, found some of the stone drums of this older temple used as foundations
for the marble Corinthian columns of Cossutius' building. He also found
traces of a smaller and still older temple than that of Peisistratus. The
existing temple, though commenced by Antiochus, was not completed till the
reign of Hadrian, who was a very liberal benefactor to Athens. The
excavations of 1887 showed that it was
octastyle,
not decastyle, as had previously been thought, thus showing the correctness
of Vitruvius' statement on this point (see
Vitr.
3.2,
8). It was dipteral, with twenty
columns on the flanks, and three rows at each end in front of the pronaos
and posticum. Part of the cella behind the statue of Zeus was divided by a
cross wall, so as to form an opisthodomus. In spite of the cella being
(proportionally) very narrow, there were ranges of internal columns, forming
two narrow aisles with galleries over them. The size of the temple, measured
on the top step of the stylobate, was 354 feet by 135 feet. The magnificent
Corinthian columns, of which fourteen are still standing, are 6 ft. 6 in. in
diameter, and 60 feet high: the style of the capitals and the beauty of the
workmanship make it probable that these columns date from the time of
Cossutius,
c. 170 B.C.,
rather than from the reign of Hadrian. The gold and ivory statue within the
cella was a copy of that by Pheidias at Olympia (
Paus.
2.27,
1). The columns from this temple
which Sulla (
c. 86 B.C.) removed to Rome to use in
the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, were, as Mr. Penrose has suggested,
probably monolithic shafts of coloured marble from the interior of the cella
(see
Plin. Nat. 36.45).
Circular Greek Temples.
A form of Greek temple not included in the above classification is the
Tholus, a round building, often surrounded
by columns forming a circular peristyle. The
Prytaneum, which existed in every important Greek city, seems to
have been usually a building of this kind. It contained an ever-burning
sacred fire in honour of Hestia (
ϝεστία) or
Vesta; so also the Roman temples of Vesta were built on this circular
plan.
8 [
PRYTANEUM] Remains
of the famous
Tholus at Epidaurus have recently
been discovered. It was a large handsome building of Parian marble, within
the sacred temenus of Asclepios, to whom it was dedicated. It was designed
by Polycleitus the younger in the 4th century B.C., and contained mural paintings by Pausias (see
Paus. 2.27;
THOLUS).
Another circular temple or
Heroon was the
Philippeion at Olympia, remains of which were discovered
a few years ago by the German excavators. It was surrounded by a circular
peristyle of 18 Ionic columns: the interior of the cella was decorated with
engaged columns of the Corinthian order. In design it closely resembled the
Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum, after its rebuilding by Severus (see
Paus. 5.20).
For an account of the management, ritual, and property of temples, see SACERDOS, THESAURUS, and
VECTIGALIA
TEMPLORUM
Roman Temples.
Little originality was shown by the Romans in the designs of their temples,
as in other artistic matters. Though skilful builders and good practical
engineers, they had very little talent for art, or even good taste in
matters of design; and thus it happened that the special Roman modifications
made in designs which they borrowed from others were very usually far from
being improvements from the aesthetic point of view. In early times Roman
temples were copied from those of the Etruscans; in later times, after the
conquest of Greece, the temples of the Romans were imitations of Greek
temples, more or less modified to suit their different practical needs.
In its primitive form the Etruscan temple appears to have been a wooden
structure, with trunks of trees for columns, widely spaced, and carrying a
timber architrave. Terracotta mouldings, friezes, and other enrichments were
very largely used, all decorated with rather coarse painting in
different-coloured ochres, and the brilliant red
minium. Terracotta was also used by the Etruscans for sculpture
on a large scale, both for the principal statue of the deity within the
cella, and also for groups or reliefs in and over the pediment of the
façade. Varro (quoted by Pliny,
Plin.
Nat. 35.154), speaking of the Temple of Ceres by the Circus
Maximus, remarks that before the introduction of Greek art into Rome,
“all things connected with temples were Etruscan.” The
Etruscans were also remarkable for their technical skill as bronze workers.
Much of the oldest Roman sculpture in bronze shows a strong Etruscan
influence; and many important statues, such as “the Orator” and
the Chimaera in the Museum in Florence, and the Capitoline Wolf in Rome, are
evidently the work of Etruscan artists.
The Roman
Tuscan style was a survival of the
ancient Etruscan forms. Vitruvius' dissertation on Tuscan temples appears to
be based on the one important example of a temple built in the primitive
Etruscan way, which survived till the time of the Empire (see
Vitr. 4.7). This was the great
Temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus, which stood on the south-western peak of
the Capitoline hill, one of the earliest of the Roman temples, which, though
frequently burnt and rebuilt, was always restored in the old Etruscan style
for religious reasons--hieratic rules being always very conservative. Like
the chief temples
[p. 2.788]of most Etruscan cities, the
Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was jointly dedicated to a triad of
deities--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; Tinia, Thalna, and Merva. Thus the
cella was divided into three parts, each with its own doorway opening under
the prostlye portico. The columns were very widely spaced (
araeostyle), and so, even when the main building had
been reconstructed in marble, the architrave was still necessarily made of
wood, as the length of bearing from column to column was too great for a
stone or marble lintel to span. Before the burning of the temple in 83 B.C., the apex of the pediment was surmounted by a
large quadriga of terracotta, the work of an early Etruscan sculptor, which
was said to have been brought from Veii by Tarquinius Superbus, who built
the first temple (
Liv. 1.53).<
Fig. 12 shows part of a relief from the triumphal arch of M. Aurelius,
9 representing the Emperor offering sacrifice after a victory in front
of the temple, which had been rebuilt during the reign of Vespasian. This
relief shows clearly the doors of the three cellae, the widelyspaced columns
of the portico, and the sculpture in the pediment and above, it, which was
probably
|
Fig. 12. Part of a relief showing the fagade of the triple Tuscan
Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with the doors of the three cellae
and the sculpture in and on the pediment.
|
a reproduction in marble of the original terracotta groups.
Vitruvius, in his fourth book, has written a good deal on the designs of
Roman temples; and he gives elaborate directions for the setting out of
their plans and for the proportions of their columns, and other details in
the various orders. it should, however, be remembered that he is merely
expressing his own views of what is most desirable in a building, and that
his rules are mostly quite arbitrary, and were by no means universally
followed in Roman buildings. Most existing temples show that Vitruvius'
theories were little known or regarded by other architects, and they are
therefore of less importance to the modern student of archaeology than has
usually been supposed.
Differences between Greek and Roman Temples.
The later Roman temples, which were built under the influence of Greek art,
were designed in three styles or orders,--namely,
Roman-Doric,
Ionic, and
Corinthian. Roman temples of
all these styles were built with certain modifications
[p. 2.789]which were introduced by the Roman or Graeco-Roman architects.
The cella of a Roman temple was usually wider in proportion than that of a
Greek temple, and was without “aisles” or inner ranges of free
columns, though “engaged” or even complete columns were very
commonly set along the internal walls of the cella. Owing to the increased
width of the cella, there was frequently no peristyle along the flanks of
the Roman temples, but only “engaged” columns on the outside of
the cella. Roman temples were very often set, not on a mere stylobate of
steps, but on a lofty base or
podium, with
plinth and cornice of its own. The proportion between the front and the
sides of the Roman temples was far more variable than it was among the
Greeks.
In some Roman temples windows were introduced, as,
e.g., in the Temple of Concord in the Forum Romanum. The slope of the
roof, and consequently that of the pediments, were much steeper in a Roman
than in a Greek temple. Monolithic columns of coloured marble or granite
were commonly used, and in matters of construction and decoration generally
the differences were very great. Especially under the later Roman Empire
there was a great tendency to overload the buildings with ornament. In some
cases every member of a cornice was completely covered with carved
enrichments, leaving no plain surfaces as a relief to the eye, and to
enhance the value of the ornament. A certain amount of vulgarity and
gaudiness of effect is characteristic of the temple architecture of the
Romans, very much in the same way as with their domestic buildings. In point
of beauty of workmanship, Roman temples vary very much. Some of the finest,
which were probably built by architects who were Greeks either by blood or
by education, are almost as delicate in detail and highly finished as a
Greek temple of the 5th century B.C.; especially
those which were built in the reign of Augustus, as,
e.g., the temples of Concord and of Castor in the Roman Forum. In
the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., or even earlier,
the workmanship is very coarse, and the sculptured ornament very weak and
clumsy in design. The coarse taste of the Romans led them to care little for
the pure beauty of white marble, even though decorated with painting, and so
it was with them a common custom to line the whole interiors of the temples
with thin slabs or veneers (
crustae) of
richly-coloured marbles, which, from the time of Augustus onwards, were
imported in immense quantities from Asia Minor, Greece, Northern Africa, and
other countries. Even white marble was but little used before the reign of
Augustus, but the discovery of the magnificent quarries at Luna (modern
Carrara) soon made white marble to be very common among
the building materials of Rome, especially as a casing to stone or concrete
walls.
Treasures in Roman Temples.--As was the case with Greek
temples, vast stores of treasure were frequently preserved in the temples of
the Romans. A very fine collection of silver plate, in the form of
richly-decorated cups, vases,
paterae, and
statuettes, was discovered in 1830 below the remains of the Temple of
Mercury of Canetum in Bernay, Département de l'Eure. This find,
consisting of about 80 pieces of plate of various dates from the 3rd century
B.C. to the 2nd century A.D., is now preserved in
the Biblioth[qgrave]ue Nationale of Paris (see Chabouillet,
Cat.
des Camées, etc. de la Bibl. Imp., Paris, 1858, p.
418). It was also not uncommon for wealthy Romans to deposit their own plate
or money for safe keeping in the treasury of some temple. These Roman
treasuries were usually formed under the temple floor in some part of the
lofty
podium on which most Roman temples were
built. Remains of these strong rooms are to be seen in several of the
temples in the Forum Romanum; they are cellar-like cavities in the immense
mass of concrete which forms the bulk of the
podium. This is the case in the temples of Castor, Divus Julius,
Concord, Vespasian, and Saturn. The entrance to the treasury of the Temple
of Castor is shown on fig. 14 (cf. Juv.
Sat.
14.260).
In early times the
methods of construction used in
Roman temples were very similar to those of the Greeks. The walls were built
of large squared blocks (
opus quadratum) of the
local stone, whatever that happened to be, always coated with a fine hard
cement. In Rome itself the earliest temples were built of the soft brown
tufa, of which the Roman hills chiefly consist,--a
stone which decays rapidly under exposure to the weather, but lasted
perfectly well as long as it was covered with cement. Towards the close of
the Republic harder and more durable stones were used; namely, the volcanic
lapis Albanus (modern
peperino) and the
lapis Tiburtinus
(mod.
travertino), a hard limestone which exists in
large beds near Tibur (
Tivoli). Under the Empire concrete was
very largely used for foundations, and for the inner core of walls; it was
made of lime, pozzolana (
pulvis Puteolanus),
and broken fragments of stone.
Only a very few of the most magnificent Roman temples were built of solid
blocks of marble, as,
e.g., the Temple of Apollo on
the Palatine hill, built by Augustus, of which no remains are now visible.
This splendid building, which was crowded with sculpture by distinguished
Greek sculptors and other spoils from Hellenic cities, was most sumptuously
decorated with paintings, doors plated with gold and ivory, and the most
costly furniture of every description, such as tripods, tables, cups, and
even large statues of gold and silver--a perfect museum of Greek art of
every period from the 6th century B.C. downwards. Many others of the chief
temples of Rome contained very large collections of Greek works of art of
all kinds, from colossal bronze statues down to caskets of engraved gems,
as,
e.g., the Temple of Concord and the Temple of
Peace. In fact, the whole of Greece was ransacked to enrich the capital of
the Roman conquerors, and it is probable that no Greek city ever possessed
so magnificent a collection of Hellenic works of art as did the city of Rome
during the reign of Nero, before the great fire destroyed so large a part of
the city and its stores of foreign spoils. From one place alone, Delphi,
Nero is recorded to have carried away 400 bronze statues, and this was
merely one incident in the great system of spoliation which had been carried
on almost incessantly, ever since the sack of Corinth by Mummius, in 146
B.C.
On the whole, Roman temples were loftier
[p. 2.790]than those
of the Greeks, lighter in their general proportions, and had their columns
more widely spaced. The closest (most pycinostyle) intercolumniation that
Vitruvius mentions has wider spans than any of the chief Doric temples of
the Greeks (see
Vitr. 3.3,
2).
Roman Orders: I.
Doric (
Vitr. 4.3).--This differs from the Greek Doric in many respects.
The columns have bases, and the capitals have a moulding above the square
abacus, and a
torus necking some distance below
the annulets under the echinus. The shafts were often left unfluted, and the
angle triglyphs were placed over the axis of the angle columns, not brought
up to the extreme corner of the frieze as in Greek Doric. The mouldings and
all the details were different from the Greek prototype.
II.
Ionic (
Vitr. 3.5).--This order
differs less from the Greek Ionic than is the case with the last-mentioned
style. The variations in the capitals, bases, and entablature are not
important, and the principal differences between Greek and Roman Ionic
temples fall chiefly under the general heads mentioned above--viz.
modifications of plan and arrangement.
III.
Corinthian (
Vitr.
4.1).--As is stated above, this order was more used by the Romans
than by the Greeks, in spite of the fact that the great Temple of Olympian
Zeus at Athens was built in the Corinthian style. Owing to its richness of
detail, most of the more magnificent temples of the Romans were built in the
Corinthian style. The so-called
Composite order
is not really a separate order, but merely a variation of the Corinthian,
the chief difference being in the capitals, which have a rather awkward
combination of the Ionic volute with the Corinthian acanthus leaves. The
earliest existing example of this style is the triumphal arch of Titus on
the Summa Sacra Via in Rome. Under the later Empire Composite capitals were
very largely used.
The chief temples in Rome of which remains still exist are these:--
The Temple of Vesta, at the south of the Forum Romanum, was
one of the most primitive of all the Roman temples; in it was preserved the
sacred fire, guarded by the six Vestal Virgins, whose large and magnificent
house has, within the last few years, been exposed to view, close by the
remains of the temple. This most sacred of all Roman shrines was not a
templum in the strict meaning of the word,
but rather an
aedes sacra, as it was not
consecrated by the augurs, the presence of the sacred fire being sufficient
to give it a character of the highest sanctity. It was frequently burnt and
rebuilt, the last restoration being that of the Emperor Severus, who rebuilt
it as a circular marble Corinthian temple, with 18 columns, on a high
podium. The tufa foundations, of which considerable remains still exist, are
of much earlier date. Of the marble part nothing remains but fallen
fragments of columns and entablature, which are, however, sufficient to give
the design of the whole when complete. We repeat here the cut already given
under
CANCELLI
Another circular temple, dedicated to one of
|
Fig. 13. The Temple (aedes) of Vesta,
as rebuilt by Severus, restored from existing remains by Comm.
Lanciani.
|
the most primitive cults of ancient Rome, was the
Temple of
the Dea Dia in the sacred grove of the
Collegium of the
Fratres
Arvales, a short distance outside the Porta Portuensis. [For the
Arval brothers, see ARVALES.]
The
Pantheon, built by M. V. Agrippa in the Campus Martius, is
the most stately and magnificent of all Roman circular temples. It was, most
probably, originally designed as part of the
Thermae of Agrippa, near to which it stands; but it seems to have
been consecrated as a temple to a number of deities as soon as it was
completed. It is covered by a magnificent dome 142 feet in diameter, with a
circular hypaethral opening at the top. The walls, which are 20 feet thick,
are of concrete faced with triangular bricks, and partly covered with a
lining of marble slabs both inside and outside. The dome, which is also of
concrete, was covered with tiles of gilt bronze. Magnificent monolithic
columns of coloured marbles from Phrygia and Numidia are used to decorate
the series of altar-recesses round the interior. In front is a stately
octastyle portico of the Corinthian order, with monolithic unfluted columns
of grey and red granite from Egypt. An inscription on the frieze records its
building by Agrippa in 27 B.C. Within the pediment was a large group in
bronze of the battle of the gods and the giants. The great doorway still
contains its original double doors of massive bronze, divided into moulded
panels, with enriched bosses on the framing; the whole was once thickly
gilt. With the exception of the
Temple of Divus Romulus, the
son of Maxentius, in the Forum Romanum, the Pantheon is the only Roman
building which still retains its original bronze doors
in
situ. Those of the
Curia are now
placed in the main entrance of the Lateran Basilica, having been moved there
in the 16th century.
The principal temples which, in part at least, still exist in the
Forum Romanum are these:--
The
Temple of Castor, at the south angle of the Forum, was a
very fine octastyle, peripteral
[p. 2.791]building of
Corinthian style, elevated on a lofty
podium.
Three of its columns of white Pentelic marble are still standing, together
with a portion of the rich entablature. The existing temple was built in the
reign of Augustus on the site of an older stone temple dedicated to the
Dioscuri an commemoration of their appearance in Rome after the battle of
Lake Regillus (see fig. 14).
|
Fig. 14. Plan of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum
Romanum. The right-band half shows the upper temple, the other half
shows the construction of the podium,
consisting of a great mass of concrete surrounded by walls of
opus quadratum.
A. Pedestal of one of the two statues.
B B B. Spurs of foundation wall to carry the marble columns.
C. Entrance to a small treasure-chamber in the podium.
D. Existing fragment of mosaic pavement.
|
The
Temple of Divus Julius stands close by that of Castor; it
was built by Augustus in honour of his adoptive father. Nothing now remains
but the massive concrete podium, and a few scattered fragments of marble.
Vitruvius (
3.3,
2)
mentions this temple as an example of close or pyenostyle intercolumniation.
The
Temple of Concord, which was rebuilt by Augustus on an
enlarged scale, is abnormal in plan, owing to its position close against the
wall of the so-called
Tabularium of the
Capitol. It had a large oblong cella, decorated with rows of internal
columns set on a lofty plinth or podium all round the interior, and a lofty
hexastyle portico facing on to the Forum, and approached by a long flight of
marble steps. The details of the entablature and the internal decorations of
the cella are very rich and delicate in execution. On each side of the
portico were two large windows to light the cella, which contained a very
fine collection of Greek sculpture. Except the great concrete
podium, little now remains of this once magnificent
temple.
The
Temple of Vespasian, which stands close by that of
Concord, was a prostyle, hexastyle building of the Corinthian order. Its
rear wall, like that of the Temple of Concord, is set against the front of
the “Tabularium.” This temple was built by Titus and Domitian
in honour of their father: three of its columns are still standing, made of
Luna marble.
The
Temple of Saturn stands in front of the last-named
building. The present temple, which occupies the site of one of the oldest
of the Roman temples, dates only from a rebuilding in the reign of
Diocletian after a fire. It is a prostyle, hexastyle building, of the Ionic
order, with columns of granite. It was very carelessly and clumsily rebuilt;
some of the columns are set upside down, and the details of mouldings and
enrichments are of the coarsest style. In early times part of this temple
was used as the public treasury of Rome--the
Aerarium
Saturni (see Servius
Serv. ad
Aen. 2.116, and Macrob.
Saturn.
1.8).
The
Temple of Faustina stands at the eastern angle of the
Form. It is a hexastyle, prostyle, Corinthian building, with large
monolithic columns of Carystian marble (modern
cipollino). The temple was built by Antoninus Pius in honour of his
wife Diva Faustina, and after his death the temple was jointly consecrated
to him also by the Roman senate. With the exception of the back wall of the
cella, the building is still very perfect.
Two small bronze shrines,
aediculae, stood on
the verge of the Forum. One of these was the
Shrine of
Concord, near the large marble temple dedicated to that deity (
Liv. 9.64). The other was the bronze
Shrine
of Janus, on the north-east side of the Form, the doors of which
were only closed during the rare times when the Romans were at peace with
all the world. This curious little building is very clearly shown on a First
Brass of Nero, struck to commemorate the closing of its doors. It is simply
a small cella, covered with bronze plates, and decorated with an elaborate
frieze of the same metal; the whole was probably gilt.
Though not what we should call temples, yet, in the Roman sense, the
Curia or Senate-house and the
Rostra were
templa, as having
been consecrated by the augurs. The present remains of the
Curia, on the north-east of the Forum, are not older
than the time of Diocletian. It is a very simple building of concrete faced
with brick; the whole of its marble decorations have been torn away.
The existing
Rostra, a platform for public
speeches, on the north-west side of the Forum, dates from the time of Julius
Caesar, 44 B.C. The front of the platform, which is 80 feet long, was faced
with white marble, and decorated with the bronze beaks of ships taken at
Antium. [
ROSTRA]
Temples in the Imperial Fora.--The five Fora in Rome, which
were built under the Empire to
[p. 2.792]relieve the press
of business in the old Forum Romanum, each contained an important temple in
a central position within the circuit of its walls. The first of these was
built by Julius Caesar, near the north angle of the old Forum. Within it was
a temple dedicated to Venus Genitrix, whose statue was the work of the Greek
sculptor Arcesilaos (
Suet. Jul. 26, and
Plut. Caes. 60). No remains of this temple are
now visible, the site being covered by modern houses.
The second Forum, that of Augustus, contains the
Temple of Mars
Ultor, dedicated to commemorate the vengeance taken on the murderers
of J. Caesar. it is a prostyle, tetrastyle, Corinthian temple: a
considerable part of it still exists, close by the
Arco de'
Pantani. The adjoining piece of circuit-wall of the Forum is one of
the most imposing of all the ancient remains in Rome; it is built of massive
opus quadratum of
peperino.
The next Forum, built by Vespasian near the east angle of the old Forum,
contained a very magnificent
Temple of Peace, richly
decorated with Greek spoils in the form of statues in bronze and marble by
the most celebrated sculptors. In this temple were also placed the spoils of
the Temple at Jerusalem, sacked by Titus in 70 A.D., including the candlesticks, the table of offering and the
trumpets, all of. gold, which are represented in one of the reliefs inside
the Triumphal Arch of Titus on the Summa Sacra Via. No remains of this
temple are now known.
The fourth Forum, built by Nerva, contained a fine tetrastyle, prostyle,
Corinthian temple dedicated to Minerva. Part of it remained till the year
1606, when it was finally destroyed for the sake of its fine marble columns,
which were taken by Pope Paul V. to use in decorating the Basilica of Sta. Maria Maggiore.
The latest Forum, architecturally the most magnificent of them all, was built
by Trajan about the year 114 A.D. Its temple stood on the north-east side of
the Forum, facing the great triumphal Column of Trajan, which is still one
of the most conspicuous and best-preserved monuments of ancient Rome.
The
Campus Martius, which was the most
magnificent portion of ancient Rome, contained a large number of fine
temples, mostly crowded with works of art. One group of three temples, set
closely side by side, bordered on the small Forum Olitorium. Scanty remains
of the three still exist in the church of S. Niccolò in Carcere:
they are shown on one of the fragments of the marble plan of Rome, made in
the time of Severus, which is now preserved in the Capitoline Museum.
Another very magnificent group of temples adjoined the
Porticus Octaviae.
The Capitoline Hill.--Two of the chief temples of Rome stood
on the Capitoline hill; the one on the Tarpeian peak was dedicated to
Jupiter Capitolinus. It has been described above.
The opposite peak, the
Arx, was crowned by the
great
Temple of Juno Moneta ( “the Adviser” ):
it was the site of the early Roman mint, whence
moneta came to mean “money.” The stately Franciscan
church of Stta. Maria in Ara Coeli now occupies its
site.
A number of smaller temples occupied the depression between the two peaks of
the Capitoline hill which was known as the
Asylum. One of these, the
Temple of Jupiter
Feretrius, dated from pre-historic, times, and was popularly said to
have been founded by Romulus (
Liv. 1.10).
A small, very perfect, circular temple of unknown dedication stands in the
Forum Boarium on the Tiber bank, close by the mouth of one of the great
drains,
cloacae. In design and size it closely
resembles the Temple of Vesta, shown in fig. 13.
The largest of the temples in Rome was the double
Temple of Roma
Aeterna and Venus Felix, built by Hadrian and Antoninus Pius,
and said to have been designed by Hadrian. Remains of its immense concrete
podium are visible on the north side of the
Sacra Via, extending down towards the Colosseum. It was a decastyle,
dipteral temple of the Corinthian order, with two apsidal-ended cellae set
end to end, and enclosed by the same double peristyle of enormous monolithic
columns of porphyry and granite. The concrete walls of the two cellae were
faced with blocks of marble and decorated with internal niches and columns
of various richly-coloured foreign marbles. Inside the cellae were colossal
statues of Venus and Roma, together with many imported statues and other
works of art. Throughout the Middle Ages the ruins of this magnificent
temple were used as quarries to supply marble and porphyry. The greater part
of the sumptuous marble decorations and statues were burnt into lime on the
spot in kilns formed of broken pieces of the great granite and porphyry
columns. This is the reason why so very little now remains of this enormous
building.
The
Temple of Quirinus, on the Quirinal hill, which existed as
early as the time of Vitruvius (reign of Augustus), was also dipteral. It
was of the Doric order, with octastyle fronts (
Vitr.
3.2,
7). No remains of it are now visible.
The two last-named buildings were the only dipteral temples in Rome itself.
For further details on the temples of Rome, see Middleton,
Ancient
Rome in 1888 (Edinburgh, 1888).
Provincial Temples.--A large number of important Roman temples
still exist in various provinces of the Empire. The
Temple of
Roma and
Divus Augustus at Ancyra in
Galatia--a Corinthian hexastyle, peripteral building--is of special interest
from the walls both of the cella and pronaos being cut with the celebrated
inscription of the
Res gestae of Augustus,
which was copied from the sepulchral inscriptions on two bronze pillars in
front of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. The text is given, both in Greek
and Latin (see Mommsen,
Mon. Ancyr. 1883). (For this and for
other Roman temples in Asia Minor, see Texier and Pullan,
Asia Minor, 1865, and Perrot et Guillaume,
Explor.
Arch. de Galatic, 1872; others are illustrated by Le Bas,
Voy. Arch. en Grèce, &c., ed. Reinach,
1888.)
Northern Africa is also rich in remains of Roman temples of Imperial date. A
very remarkable group of temples exists at Suffetula (modern Sbeitta, in
Algeria), in the province of Carthage. A handsome
temenus or
porticus, surrounded by a
colonnade, about 200 feet square, encloses three temples built side by side,
[p. 2.793]of similar size and design, except that the
central one has Composite capitals, while the others are Corinthian. Each is
a tetrastyle, prostyle building, with engaged columns outside the cella
walls. A fine triple archway, inscribed with the names of Hadrian and
Antoninus Pius, is set at the entrance into the
temenus. This system of grouping several temples together was a common
Roman custom, intended to give great magnificence of effect.
One of the best-preserved of Roman temples is the so-called
maison carrée at Nîmes
(Nemausus). This is a richly decorated Corinthian building, with a
hexastyle, prostyle portico and engaged columns outside the cella walls. Its
detail is remarkably delicate and well designed, as is the case with other
Roman buildings in Southern France; probably on account of some survival of
early influence from the Greek colonists of Massilia (Marseilles) and its
neighbourhood.
Romano-British Temples.--In Britain remains of a good many
Roman temples have been discovered, but none are in a good state of
preservation. Though similar in plan and general design to the temples in
Italy, they differ in being usually built of rubble stone-work, made of
local materials, instead of the concrete faced with marble which is so
common in Rome. Mosaic floors occur frequently, with
tesserae made of burnt clay and different-coloured
limestones, instead of the rich marbles which were used in the mosaics of
Italy and Africa. In all cases the walls seem to have been coated with
stucco, though very frequently but little of the stucco still remains, owing
to its being made of the inferior Oolitic limes, and without the
pozzolana which gives such enduring strength to the
cements and stuccoes of Italy. It was, no doubt, owing to the want of
pozzolana that the Romans in Britain made
comparatively so little use of concrete for building walls and vaults.
At Lydney, in Gloucestershire, a very interesting temple was discovered in
1805, dedicated to a Romano-British deity called
Nodens, who
appears to have been akin to the classical Aesculapius. A very extensive
enclosure surrounds the temple, and on one side of it are remains of a large
house, designed on the usual Romano-British plan, with its rooms grouped
round the four sides of an open
porticus, very
like a mediaeval cloister (see
Archaeologia, v. p, 208; and
Bathurst,
Roman Antiquities of Lydney, 1810).
The remains of the Roman city of Silchester are specially interesting for the
completeness, in plan at least, of the whole group of sacred and secular
buildings around the public Forum (see
Archaeologia, vol. l.,
p. 263). In most cases, however, Roman cities in Britain have continued to
be inhabited ever since the Roman period, and the building of later houses
has usually obliterated the remains of the ancient structures.
[
J.H.M]