DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4326#0107
APHRODISIAS.
69
PLATE XIV.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE.
We have here a building with an arrangement of columns and intervals differing from any
example that has hitherto been met with or described. As a general rule it may be unhesitatingly
admitted, that as the number of columns in the fronts were increased, the intervals were in a cor-
responding degree reduced. We have decastyle fronts with intervals of a diameter and a half,
octastyle with intervals of a diameter and three fourths, tetrastyle and hexastyle with three and
two diameters respectively. But in the present instance we have the anomaly of an octastyle
front with intervals little more than a diameter and a quarter, the column being 3\ 8" and the
interval 4V.9' whereas the general practice might have given as much as 6\&\ Those who have
had the means of comparing the parts in detail of the temple at Magnesia, attributed by Vitruvius
to Hermogenes, and the temple now under discussion, must feel convinced that the two octas-
tyle Ionic buildings are of the same age, that their details are of the same school, and if not
proceeding from the same hand, at least directed by the same mind ; and although in the more
magnificent example, namely that of Magnesia, the corresponding mouldings are more enriched,
yet the contours in both are the same. How is it then that with all these points of coincidence
the disposal of the columns in the flanks is so different? that the intercolumniations of the larger
temple are 9.2\1, the diameter of the columns being 4\7"-4 or, very nearly two to one, whilst
in the other they are little more than one and a quarter to one ? The unusual asperiias, as Vitruvius
the eulogist of wide intervals would term it, seems to set all written rule at defiance, but it is the
introduction of the words asperitatem inter columnar nm* which has led to a knowledge that the im-
mortality claimed for the inventor of the Pseudodipteral style was not altogether based on the ground
of a considerable omission, or because this omission allowed of a wider ambulatio between the cella
walls and the columns, as a refuge against the imbriwn vis aquce; for this was a work of supere-
rogation, as the public might have had recourse to the surrounding porticoes. + We can easily un-
derstand how the close position of external columns would in every oblique view exclude the sight
of an inner range ; and on this supposition it might be said of Hermogenes, with some modification
however, that in omitting the inner range " de adspectu nihil imminuit." We have here then
an example of what Vitruvius calls the octastyle pseudodipteral; and in all probability this is the
very temple of Bacchus, to which he alludes ; although with his usual perplexity of language he
give us no means of knowing its situation with certainty. J
* See Note to Plate XIII. f Vitruvius passim.
+ How constant is the language of some modern writers
on architecture that porticoes and columns are only adapted
to the more southern climes, and quite displaced in countries
periodically subject to the fall of much rain. It might be
thought on the contrary, from what meets us in every page of
Vitruvius, that Italy was a country of eternal rain; for all his por-
ticoes, his ambulationes, and his laxamenta circa cellas, are to
provide against such vicissitudes of climate, and not for pro-
tection against the powerful influence of the sun.
69
PLATE XIV.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE.
We have here a building with an arrangement of columns and intervals differing from any
example that has hitherto been met with or described. As a general rule it may be unhesitatingly
admitted, that as the number of columns in the fronts were increased, the intervals were in a cor-
responding degree reduced. We have decastyle fronts with intervals of a diameter and a half,
octastyle with intervals of a diameter and three fourths, tetrastyle and hexastyle with three and
two diameters respectively. But in the present instance we have the anomaly of an octastyle
front with intervals little more than a diameter and a quarter, the column being 3\ 8" and the
interval 4V.9' whereas the general practice might have given as much as 6\&\ Those who have
had the means of comparing the parts in detail of the temple at Magnesia, attributed by Vitruvius
to Hermogenes, and the temple now under discussion, must feel convinced that the two octas-
tyle Ionic buildings are of the same age, that their details are of the same school, and if not
proceeding from the same hand, at least directed by the same mind ; and although in the more
magnificent example, namely that of Magnesia, the corresponding mouldings are more enriched,
yet the contours in both are the same. How is it then that with all these points of coincidence
the disposal of the columns in the flanks is so different? that the intercolumniations of the larger
temple are 9.2\1, the diameter of the columns being 4\7"-4 or, very nearly two to one, whilst
in the other they are little more than one and a quarter to one ? The unusual asperiias, as Vitruvius
the eulogist of wide intervals would term it, seems to set all written rule at defiance, but it is the
introduction of the words asperitatem inter columnar nm* which has led to a knowledge that the im-
mortality claimed for the inventor of the Pseudodipteral style was not altogether based on the ground
of a considerable omission, or because this omission allowed of a wider ambulatio between the cella
walls and the columns, as a refuge against the imbriwn vis aquce; for this was a work of supere-
rogation, as the public might have had recourse to the surrounding porticoes. + We can easily un-
derstand how the close position of external columns would in every oblique view exclude the sight
of an inner range ; and on this supposition it might be said of Hermogenes, with some modification
however, that in omitting the inner range " de adspectu nihil imminuit." We have here then
an example of what Vitruvius calls the octastyle pseudodipteral; and in all probability this is the
very temple of Bacchus, to which he alludes ; although with his usual perplexity of language he
give us no means of knowing its situation with certainty. J
* See Note to Plate XIII. f Vitruvius passim.
+ How constant is the language of some modern writers
on architecture that porticoes and columns are only adapted
to the more southern climes, and quite displaced in countries
periodically subject to the fall of much rain. It might be
thought on the contrary, from what meets us in every page of
Vitruvius, that Italy was a country of eternal rain; for all his por-
ticoes, his ambulationes, and his laxamenta circa cellas, are to
provide against such vicissitudes of climate, and not for pro-
tection against the powerful influence of the sun.