DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4324#0047
PRIENE. 25
The propylaeum at Priene is a building of the Ionic order of architecture, having a tetrastyle
portico in each front: within the principal portico is a door-way, of no considerable width, which
gave access to the court and the temple beyond. The interior of the building is divided in width
into three equal spaces, separated by two rows of Ionic pilasters, two feet each way: these are
surmounted by capitals of a singular design, differing wholly, like all those of the pilasters of
Grecian architecture, from the capitals of the columns. Like the interior columns of the Athenian
propylasa, these pilasters support the marble cieling of the building and the roof, of the same
material, above it.
The columns are more than two feet in diameter, and the intercolumniations are nearly five feet
three inches in width, the intervals being to the diameter of the column in the proportion of more
than two and a half to one. The central interval is not enlarged in this instance, although, as we
have already had occasion to remark, the severity of the rules applicable to the construction of sacred
edifices, was sometimes disregarded in buildings of a less solemn character. According to the
Grecian notions of beauty in architecture, the width of a portico bore some relation to the height,
conjoindy with some reference to the number of columns the front presented. Where there were
only four columns in front the intervals were sometimes made equal to three times the diameter of
the columns, whilst, on the other hand, in porticoes having ten columns in front, the intervals
were- sometimes a diameter and three-fourths, and sometimes, as in the instance of the temple of
Apollo Didymaeus, a diameter and six-tenths.
In a tetrastyle portico therefore there seemed to be little occasion for widening the central interval,
unless when the dimensions of the building were altogether inconsiderable; when so much as three
diameters of a column afforded an opening of insufficient width for the purposes of ingress.
PLATE XII.
THE PORTICO OF THE PROPYLAEUM.
The columns, like those of the temple, were raised upon plinths. The bases are of the common
Attic form.
There are some features of the building indicating an age of architecture less pure than the
period of the construction of the temple. The abacus of the capital has a fillet, a very unequi-
vocal mark of degradation in architecture; the fascia? of the epistylium are more unequally divided,
and the frieze is less in depth, and without the cymatium or ovalo.
The propylaeum at Priene is a building of the Ionic order of architecture, having a tetrastyle
portico in each front: within the principal portico is a door-way, of no considerable width, which
gave access to the court and the temple beyond. The interior of the building is divided in width
into three equal spaces, separated by two rows of Ionic pilasters, two feet each way: these are
surmounted by capitals of a singular design, differing wholly, like all those of the pilasters of
Grecian architecture, from the capitals of the columns. Like the interior columns of the Athenian
propylasa, these pilasters support the marble cieling of the building and the roof, of the same
material, above it.
The columns are more than two feet in diameter, and the intercolumniations are nearly five feet
three inches in width, the intervals being to the diameter of the column in the proportion of more
than two and a half to one. The central interval is not enlarged in this instance, although, as we
have already had occasion to remark, the severity of the rules applicable to the construction of sacred
edifices, was sometimes disregarded in buildings of a less solemn character. According to the
Grecian notions of beauty in architecture, the width of a portico bore some relation to the height,
conjoindy with some reference to the number of columns the front presented. Where there were
only four columns in front the intervals were sometimes made equal to three times the diameter of
the columns, whilst, on the other hand, in porticoes having ten columns in front, the intervals
were- sometimes a diameter and three-fourths, and sometimes, as in the instance of the temple of
Apollo Didymaeus, a diameter and six-tenths.
In a tetrastyle portico therefore there seemed to be little occasion for widening the central interval,
unless when the dimensions of the building were altogether inconsiderable; when so much as three
diameters of a column afforded an opening of insufficient width for the purposes of ingress.
PLATE XII.
THE PORTICO OF THE PROPYLAEUM.
The columns, like those of the temple, were raised upon plinths. The bases are of the common
Attic form.
There are some features of the building indicating an age of architecture less pure than the
period of the construction of the temple. The abacus of the capital has a fillet, a very unequi-
vocal mark of degradation in architecture; the fascia? of the epistylium are more unequally divided,
and the frieze is less in depth, and without the cymatium or ovalo.