DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1519#0026
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE TEMPLE. 15
period the overwhelming and threatening superiority of those national enemies must have engaged their
attention, and forced them to devote their pecuniary resources to matters of a more practical, and perhaps of a
strictly defensive character.
The former supposition is also supported by the internal evidence drawn from what are technically termed the
orthographic proportions and no less from ichnographic arrangements. " A reference to the different proportions
of the columns and their entablature," says a noble and learned writer,* " has been supposed to afford a criterion
of the antiquity of the edifice; columns in the earliest ages are said to have been invariably low and their
entablature massive ; but as the art advanced, the entablature, it is affirmed, gradually diminished, and the
columns became more lofty and slender: this observation may be of great service in determining the age of
Grgecian monuments." Pliny, too, says that " according to the most ancient method, columns are only one third
of the height of the whole building."
A comparison of known orthographic proportions delineated at the end of this chapter will tend to confirm
this suggestion. The most archaic examples of columns show a more rapid diminution of the shaft; the absence
of the entasis ; the use of three grooves in the hypotrachelion or necking, rather than one only, as in the more
recent examples ; the parabolic section of the echinus (as at Corinth, a.d. 750, and in the Sicilian examples);
rather than the hyperbolic, which invariably occurs in the more modern ; the comparative massiveness of the
entablature, and finally the profile of the crowning cymatium (materially differing from that of the Parthenon
and the Propylsea), which profile, it is to be remarked, is discovered in the Temple of Theseus.f
It may be remarked generally on the plans of the Greek temples that the Hexastyle appears to have attained
the utmost magnificence before 430 B.C., as already observed.:]: This resulted from the practice of surrounding
the cella with a Peristyle, which probably at first had merely a portico in Antis or Prostyle. The cella,
as the habitation of the Deity, was the regulating principle, and according to the length of this part, the
number of columns in the flank was adjusted, varying from twelve, as at iEgina, to fifteen, as at Paestum and
at Phigaleia, and to seventeen, as at Selinus. The Peristyle in the earliest examples had wider intercolumniations
in the front than in the flanks. This arrangement occasioned, as it may be remarked by the way, a defective
variation in the division of the metopes and triglyphs, which arose from the necessity of giving width to the fronts
for convenience of access ; the expense and risk of Architrave stones of equal length was thus economised in the
flanks,—this is observable at Corinth, Syracuse, and Selinus.
With greater experience of the strength and durability of these Architrave stones, this rule was reversed, and
additional width was sometimes given to the side intercolumniation, to extend the length of the whole, as in
one of the temples at Selinus. In the earliest examples,, the width of the Peristyle in the flanks and front is
narrow. In the Theseium we discover the first step towards a marked improvement in the greater spaciousness
of the eastern portico, which is equal to nearly two intercolumniations; this is still further extended at
Phigaleia (420 b.c.) and at Nemea : the same principle is also to be observed at Agrigentum, Selinus, and
Paestum, and may be considered a proof of their comparatively recent date; in many cases, as at Selinus,
* "Principles of Grecian Architecture," by the Earl of Aberdeen, 149.
Mr. Clinton, the learned author of the Fasti Hellenici—confessedly the most complete and elaborate modern work of the kind—has
divided his chronology into periods of civil and literary history alone, without adverting in any instance to the artists whose productions
have rivalled those of her writers in conferring celebrity upon Greece.
f See Principles of Athenian Architecture, Plate XXXV. The comparison of the ichnographic proportions and arrangements points
equally to a more remote period. This may be observed especially in the Temple of Theseus at Athens, which has so many points of
resemblance, though no doubt it is of a subsequent date.
Feet. Inches.
Width on the top step at iEgina . . . . . . 44 ITS
Length of Ditto..........94 0*40
Height of Ditto.........34 ' 11*84
Width on the top of the top step of the Theseium . . . . 45 2-95
Length of Ditto.........104 2*93
Height of Ditto..........33 9-43
'n
We here discover greater elongation in the latter by one column, and greater spaciousness given to the Pronaos and Posticum, as well as to
the latter.
| Vitr. iii. 2. Hermogenes was the first inventor of the Octostyle and of the Pseudodipteron, taking away the second row of columns
from the dipteral, sparing expense and labour; and thus leaving round the cella a larger space to walk in, so that if a sudden showe
occurs, a great number of people, partly in the portico and partly in the temple, might be protected.
period the overwhelming and threatening superiority of those national enemies must have engaged their
attention, and forced them to devote their pecuniary resources to matters of a more practical, and perhaps of a
strictly defensive character.
The former supposition is also supported by the internal evidence drawn from what are technically termed the
orthographic proportions and no less from ichnographic arrangements. " A reference to the different proportions
of the columns and their entablature," says a noble and learned writer,* " has been supposed to afford a criterion
of the antiquity of the edifice; columns in the earliest ages are said to have been invariably low and their
entablature massive ; but as the art advanced, the entablature, it is affirmed, gradually diminished, and the
columns became more lofty and slender: this observation may be of great service in determining the age of
Grgecian monuments." Pliny, too, says that " according to the most ancient method, columns are only one third
of the height of the whole building."
A comparison of known orthographic proportions delineated at the end of this chapter will tend to confirm
this suggestion. The most archaic examples of columns show a more rapid diminution of the shaft; the absence
of the entasis ; the use of three grooves in the hypotrachelion or necking, rather than one only, as in the more
recent examples ; the parabolic section of the echinus (as at Corinth, a.d. 750, and in the Sicilian examples);
rather than the hyperbolic, which invariably occurs in the more modern ; the comparative massiveness of the
entablature, and finally the profile of the crowning cymatium (materially differing from that of the Parthenon
and the Propylsea), which profile, it is to be remarked, is discovered in the Temple of Theseus.f
It may be remarked generally on the plans of the Greek temples that the Hexastyle appears to have attained
the utmost magnificence before 430 B.C., as already observed.:]: This resulted from the practice of surrounding
the cella with a Peristyle, which probably at first had merely a portico in Antis or Prostyle. The cella,
as the habitation of the Deity, was the regulating principle, and according to the length of this part, the
number of columns in the flank was adjusted, varying from twelve, as at iEgina, to fifteen, as at Paestum and
at Phigaleia, and to seventeen, as at Selinus. The Peristyle in the earliest examples had wider intercolumniations
in the front than in the flanks. This arrangement occasioned, as it may be remarked by the way, a defective
variation in the division of the metopes and triglyphs, which arose from the necessity of giving width to the fronts
for convenience of access ; the expense and risk of Architrave stones of equal length was thus economised in the
flanks,—this is observable at Corinth, Syracuse, and Selinus.
With greater experience of the strength and durability of these Architrave stones, this rule was reversed, and
additional width was sometimes given to the side intercolumniation, to extend the length of the whole, as in
one of the temples at Selinus. In the earliest examples,, the width of the Peristyle in the flanks and front is
narrow. In the Theseium we discover the first step towards a marked improvement in the greater spaciousness
of the eastern portico, which is equal to nearly two intercolumniations; this is still further extended at
Phigaleia (420 b.c.) and at Nemea : the same principle is also to be observed at Agrigentum, Selinus, and
Paestum, and may be considered a proof of their comparatively recent date; in many cases, as at Selinus,
* "Principles of Grecian Architecture," by the Earl of Aberdeen, 149.
Mr. Clinton, the learned author of the Fasti Hellenici—confessedly the most complete and elaborate modern work of the kind—has
divided his chronology into periods of civil and literary history alone, without adverting in any instance to the artists whose productions
have rivalled those of her writers in conferring celebrity upon Greece.
f See Principles of Athenian Architecture, Plate XXXV. The comparison of the ichnographic proportions and arrangements points
equally to a more remote period. This may be observed especially in the Temple of Theseus at Athens, which has so many points of
resemblance, though no doubt it is of a subsequent date.
Feet. Inches.
Width on the top step at iEgina . . . . . . 44 ITS
Length of Ditto..........94 0*40
Height of Ditto.........34 ' 11*84
Width on the top of the top step of the Theseium . . . . 45 2-95
Length of Ditto.........104 2*93
Height of Ditto..........33 9-43
'n
We here discover greater elongation in the latter by one column, and greater spaciousness given to the Pronaos and Posticum, as well as to
the latter.
| Vitr. iii. 2. Hermogenes was the first inventor of the Octostyle and of the Pseudodipteron, taking away the second row of columns
from the dipteral, sparing expense and labour; and thus leaving round the cella a larger space to walk in, so that if a sudden showe
occurs, a great number of people, partly in the portico and partly in the temple, might be protected.