DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4327#0017
THE ORIGIN OF THE IONIC ORDER. 9
there being no others, except perhaps one at Epidaurus,1 known to contain Chrys-elephantine statues, it may
fairly be assumed that they were exceptional, while an examination of the peculiarities of those at Bassee, Egina,
and Pajstum would lead to the conclusion that a different mode of lighting was adopted in them. So far as can
now be made out, it was by an opaion or clerestory above the upper range of columns.
There is still another peculiarity, which it is difficult to account for on any other hypothesis than the great
value the Greeks set on these external wall paintings. Some of the later temples in Sicily are not only pseudo-
dipteral, but the pteroma is widened at the expense of the cella ; their plan thus becomes abnormal,2 and, judged
from an architectural point of view only, it must be condemned as bad and unmeaning. But were it the fact, that
at the time they were erected, the artists were ambitious of introducing larger and more continuous paintings on
the walls, it became evidently of importance to provide the widest possible space from which they coidd be
viewed, without any intervening pillars, and for this purpose their plans seem admirably adapted.
Whether these are or not the reasons that led to its invention, one thing, at least, is certain, that, once
it was adopted, the Greeks never deviated from this hexastyle peripteral form. They varied the width and
arrangements of the cella and of the pronaos and posticum, but, except in the Parthenon, and the great temple
at Agrigentum,3 they adhered to it with a tenacity that is remarkable in so imaginative a people. But they
probably were right, and if we could see one of these temples, with all its sculptures and paintings complete
externally, and its cella furnished with all the requisite art, and lighted in the perfect manner we know they must
have been, we too might be forced to confess that nothing so perfect of its class had been seen before or since ;
and that the Greeks were right in adhering to forms so beautiful in themselves, and which had become sacred in
their eyes from their being long devoted to the service of their gods.
THE ORIGIN OP THE IONIC ORDER.
There is probably no one who is at all familiar with ancient architecture of Central Asia, who will hesitate in
admitting that the Ionic order was derived from the architecture of the Assyrian Empire, with even greater
certainty than the Doric can be said to have owed its origin to works of the Ancient Egyptians. The reasoning,
however, on which this conclusion is based, is of a totally different character from that which was advanced to
show that the sister order was derived from the proto-Doric style still found on the banks of the Nile. In Egypt
we can trace how the simplest possible forms of an architecture of stone piers and beams, almost wholly without
ornament, were gradually, in the course of centuries, being moulded into one of multangular pillars and compli-
cated epistylia, so similar to that afterwards found in Greece, that we can hardly refuse to admit the affiliation.
In Assyria, on the contrary, we have absolutely no stone architecture, properly so called, before the time of the
Achasmenickje ; probably nothing that can even be dated so far back as the reign of Cyrus, while there is every
reason to believe that it was from their conquest of Egypt and of the Greek colonies of Ionia that the Persians
first learnt to prefer stone to wood for their ornamental architectural forms.4
The knowledge we have acquired during the last forty years from the excavations of Layard and others enables
us to assert, with very tolerable confidence, that the flat roofs of the Assyrian palaces were supported, like those of
Solomon's buildings at Jerusalem, by pillars of cedar or some other wood, as suitable for the purpose; most
probably some species of pine, which we know from the sculptures abounded in the countries to which they
had access. It certainly was some wood which would burn easily, as all the palaces seem to have been destroyed
by fire, and was of so perishable a nature, when it escaped that danger it could not resist the decay of
subsequent ages. Our only knowledge consequently of its forms is derived from the fact that when the
Acha3menida3 undertook the building of their palaces at Persepolis and Susa, they copied literally in stone the
forms that had been used in wood by their predecessors at Nineveh and Babylon.5
1 Pausanias, lib. v. ch. 11, p. 403. 2 Hittorff, Architecture Antique de la Sicile, pis. xxi. xxx. li. and lxiii.
3 The Temple of Ceres at Eleusis is not an Image-temple properly so called, but a Mystery Hall, and adapted specially for the celebration of
the Eleusinian mysteries. It is, in fact, a literal translation into the forms of Grecian architecture of the great Hypostyle Hall of Karnac, and as
nearly as may be, to one-half its dimensions. The Temple is a square, measuring rather more than 16(5 feet (Ant. of Attica, ch. iv. pi. i.) The
Hall is a double square, measuring according to Lepsius 170 feet by 333 feet, a coincidence that could hardly be accidental under any circumstances#
The arrangement too of the pillars and the mode of lighting the two halls is practically identical. The opaion of the Grecian, corresponding as
exactly with the clerestory of the Egyptian example, as the difference of the two styles of architecture will admit of—a circumstance in itself almost
sufficient to settle the question as to how light was admitted to some at least of the Temples of the Greeks.—See True Principles of Beauty in Art
pp. 385 et seq. History of Architecture, woodcuts 22, 23, and 152, 153.
4 Of course it is not to be supposed that the Assyrians did not use stone masonry for their city walls and gates, for terrace formations and
foundations, for everything in short that can come under the head of Engineering as contra-distinguished from Architecture.
5 The argument on which this assertion rests is too long to be attempted here, but is worked out in detail by me in The Palaces of Nineveh
and Persepolis Restored, published by John Murray in 1851.
D
there being no others, except perhaps one at Epidaurus,1 known to contain Chrys-elephantine statues, it may
fairly be assumed that they were exceptional, while an examination of the peculiarities of those at Bassee, Egina,
and Pajstum would lead to the conclusion that a different mode of lighting was adopted in them. So far as can
now be made out, it was by an opaion or clerestory above the upper range of columns.
There is still another peculiarity, which it is difficult to account for on any other hypothesis than the great
value the Greeks set on these external wall paintings. Some of the later temples in Sicily are not only pseudo-
dipteral, but the pteroma is widened at the expense of the cella ; their plan thus becomes abnormal,2 and, judged
from an architectural point of view only, it must be condemned as bad and unmeaning. But were it the fact, that
at the time they were erected, the artists were ambitious of introducing larger and more continuous paintings on
the walls, it became evidently of importance to provide the widest possible space from which they coidd be
viewed, without any intervening pillars, and for this purpose their plans seem admirably adapted.
Whether these are or not the reasons that led to its invention, one thing, at least, is certain, that, once
it was adopted, the Greeks never deviated from this hexastyle peripteral form. They varied the width and
arrangements of the cella and of the pronaos and posticum, but, except in the Parthenon, and the great temple
at Agrigentum,3 they adhered to it with a tenacity that is remarkable in so imaginative a people. But they
probably were right, and if we could see one of these temples, with all its sculptures and paintings complete
externally, and its cella furnished with all the requisite art, and lighted in the perfect manner we know they must
have been, we too might be forced to confess that nothing so perfect of its class had been seen before or since ;
and that the Greeks were right in adhering to forms so beautiful in themselves, and which had become sacred in
their eyes from their being long devoted to the service of their gods.
THE ORIGIN OP THE IONIC ORDER.
There is probably no one who is at all familiar with ancient architecture of Central Asia, who will hesitate in
admitting that the Ionic order was derived from the architecture of the Assyrian Empire, with even greater
certainty than the Doric can be said to have owed its origin to works of the Ancient Egyptians. The reasoning,
however, on which this conclusion is based, is of a totally different character from that which was advanced to
show that the sister order was derived from the proto-Doric style still found on the banks of the Nile. In Egypt
we can trace how the simplest possible forms of an architecture of stone piers and beams, almost wholly without
ornament, were gradually, in the course of centuries, being moulded into one of multangular pillars and compli-
cated epistylia, so similar to that afterwards found in Greece, that we can hardly refuse to admit the affiliation.
In Assyria, on the contrary, we have absolutely no stone architecture, properly so called, before the time of the
Achasmenickje ; probably nothing that can even be dated so far back as the reign of Cyrus, while there is every
reason to believe that it was from their conquest of Egypt and of the Greek colonies of Ionia that the Persians
first learnt to prefer stone to wood for their ornamental architectural forms.4
The knowledge we have acquired during the last forty years from the excavations of Layard and others enables
us to assert, with very tolerable confidence, that the flat roofs of the Assyrian palaces were supported, like those of
Solomon's buildings at Jerusalem, by pillars of cedar or some other wood, as suitable for the purpose; most
probably some species of pine, which we know from the sculptures abounded in the countries to which they
had access. It certainly was some wood which would burn easily, as all the palaces seem to have been destroyed
by fire, and was of so perishable a nature, when it escaped that danger it could not resist the decay of
subsequent ages. Our only knowledge consequently of its forms is derived from the fact that when the
Acha3menida3 undertook the building of their palaces at Persepolis and Susa, they copied literally in stone the
forms that had been used in wood by their predecessors at Nineveh and Babylon.5
1 Pausanias, lib. v. ch. 11, p. 403. 2 Hittorff, Architecture Antique de la Sicile, pis. xxi. xxx. li. and lxiii.
3 The Temple of Ceres at Eleusis is not an Image-temple properly so called, but a Mystery Hall, and adapted specially for the celebration of
the Eleusinian mysteries. It is, in fact, a literal translation into the forms of Grecian architecture of the great Hypostyle Hall of Karnac, and as
nearly as may be, to one-half its dimensions. The Temple is a square, measuring rather more than 16(5 feet (Ant. of Attica, ch. iv. pi. i.) The
Hall is a double square, measuring according to Lepsius 170 feet by 333 feet, a coincidence that could hardly be accidental under any circumstances#
The arrangement too of the pillars and the mode of lighting the two halls is practically identical. The opaion of the Grecian, corresponding as
exactly with the clerestory of the Egyptian example, as the difference of the two styles of architecture will admit of—a circumstance in itself almost
sufficient to settle the question as to how light was admitted to some at least of the Temples of the Greeks.—See True Principles of Beauty in Art
pp. 385 et seq. History of Architecture, woodcuts 22, 23, and 152, 153.
4 Of course it is not to be supposed that the Assyrians did not use stone masonry for their city walls and gates, for terrace formations and
foundations, for everything in short that can come under the head of Engineering as contra-distinguished from Architecture.
5 The argument on which this assertion rests is too long to be attempted here, but is worked out in detail by me in The Palaces of Nineveh
and Persepolis Restored, published by John Murray in 1851.
D