86

OF THE ARCH OF THESEUS, OR OF HADRIAN.

Both fronts are adorned with Corinthian columns, and are, in all parts, perfectly similar.
From the ahove-cited inscriptions it has most probably received its present names, being indifferently
called the Arch of Hadrian or of Theseus. It is of Pentelic marble, and, like the other ancient edifices
of Athens, is built without mortar or cement of any kind, the blocks of marble being connected by
cramps of metal. The surface of the ground is here raised more than three feet above the original
level on which it was erected; and to this depth it was cleared away to obtain all the measures, and
other particulars requisite for the completion of the drawings. It is also necessary here to remark, that
this arch appears evidently not to have been connected with, or to have made a part of, any other
building, but to have been originally intended to remain entirely insulated. And what appears indeed
extraordinary is, it stands so near, and is seated so obliquely to, what remains of the peribolus or wall,
which encompasses the temple, supposed by me to have been the Olympieum, that it is difficult to
reconcile its situation to any idea of beauty or convenience, or to conceive the motive, (we can hardly
suppose it a slight one,) that induced the Athenians to place it thus a.

past of the city which lie beheld through the arch; in other
words, that Hadrianopolis was on the opposite side of the arch
to that upon which its name appears. Such an inscription would
be so incompatible with the nature and intention of a boundary,
which nobody denies the Arch of Hadrian to have been, and so
contrary to every principle of reason and custom, that it is im-
possible to subscribe to it.

" One can hardly doubt, therefore, that the inscriptions are to
be read in English as follow:—On the north-west side of the
arch, ' These are Athens, the ancient city of Theseus'; and on
the south-east side, ' These are (the Athcnce) of Hadrian, and
not the city of Theseus'; that is to say, that Hadrianopolis was
on the south-east side of the gate, and the Theseian city on the
north-west side. And this interpretation is in perfect con-
formity with every other evidence."

Hadrianopolis, according to Spartian, was a name given to a part
of Athens, which of course was that where the beneficence of Ha-
drian was particularly conspicuous; but to exclude the Temple of
Jupiter from that district,—a temple, from which, according to the
previously quoted inscriptions, he derived the epithet Olympius,—
a temple within the precinct of which the cities of Greece had
each raised to him a statue, which were all surpassed by a similar
colossal offering of the Athenians at the back part of the temple
itself, which fronted this very inscription,—would require better
authority for such an exclusion, than arguments raised on the
tortured construction of the sense of an inscription. The building
ascertained to be the Pantheon of Hadrian, might from its posi-
tion be supposed to support the hypothesis of Mr. Wilkins; but
Hadrian extended his munificence to the general embellishment of
Athens, which was thence entirely called " Nova; Athena;" as seen
in the inscription on the aqueduct', and therefore any line of de-
marcation applied to the topography of Athens with a view to de-
termine a district in which alone edifices were constructed by
him must be fallacious. All that could be expected in the po-
sition of an inscribed adulatory memorial like the present, would
be, that it should stand in the vicinity of, and relate to, the
monument from the completion of which he and Athens had
derived their greatest architectural renown ; and that edifice
was undoubtedly the Temple of Jupiter Olympius. It may
be remarked that the word 7roAi; seen in these inscriptions,
affords additional proof that this arch was neither attached to,
nor inclosed by the peribolus of the temple. Had it not been
separate and disengaged, and serving as a public boundary, it
is not probable that such inscriptions would ever have been ap-
plied to it. Qed.]
a This structure we may conclude was raised as a triumphal

1 On Mr. Wilkins's plan of Athens the direction of the aqueduct, favourably
to his hypothesis, but without sufficient authority, is shewn to the west of a plane,
passing through the Arch of Hadrian, when the site of the inscribed frontispiece
to the Castellum at the foot of Mt. Anchesmus, the subject of the next chapter, is
.marked in the plan of Stuart, PI. I. of this volume, at the east of it, or on the
same side as the Olympieum, which may be most clearly seen to be the case by the
view of Athens from it at Plate I. Vol. I. That author also appears constrained,
in support of his theory, to appropriate the Pelasgicum to the southern side of the
Acropolis, which however is proved, from ancient authorities, to have been beneath
the northern or Pelasgic wall. See Vol. II. p. 10, note d. [™-l

arch, according to the custom of the Romans, commemorative of
the visit of Hadrian to Athens, at the period of the dedication of
the Olympieum, and in the same degree that the concise adulatory
antitheses inscribed on it shew the sprightly genius of the Athe-
nians, and surpass in acumen the dull enumeration of imperial ti-
tles on the Roman arches, so in architecture this monument is also
distinguished by a correspondent elegance and lightness of design.
This arch may, according to Stuart, have supplied the place of
some more ancient boundary, but it is evident that no gates were
anciently attached to it. The obliquity of it to the Olympieum
(with the western wall of the peribolus of which it forms an an-
gle of about thirty-five degrees) must have arisen from its having
been placed at right angles to a street, which it terminated, lead-
ing from the Acropolis, evidently the principal road to the temple;
and the way beyond it doubtless continued withoutside the north-
ern wall of the peribolus. Athens, according to Dicoearchus, was
badly intersected by streets, resulting from its antiquity («iwi(
iffVjj.orr>ij.r,jji.i)iyi &» t>j» u^aiorriru*) ; but the adoption of so confined
a site for such a monument is not singular with the ancients, as
is exemplified by the Arch of Sevcrus at Home, which is placed
in an equally awkward situation at an angle of the Clivus Trium-
phalis, beneath the impending wall of the Capitol.

The management of the arch by the Athenian architect of this
structure, appears to have been a practice in which he little
excelled. The ascent of the archivolt into the architrave is not
elsewhere to be observed in antiquity. This interruption of the ar-
chitrave while it tends in the construction to diminish the super-
incumbent weight on the arch, in correspondence with the extreme
thinness of the pannel at the superstructure, may also shew, that in
the ojiinion of the designer, the arch and the epistylium, accord-
ing to the original system of Grecian architecture, were incom-
patible. Although we must condemn the numerous architectural
errors conspicuous in this monument, which are to be very readily
observgd on inspecting the Plates, yet as a whole it possesses
a charm which involuntarily captivates the eye, from the play-
fulness of the design, and the influence of Attic art not yet in
its decrepitude.

The comparatively superior preservation of so fragile a building,
when the great mass of the neighbouring colossal temple has, as it
were, vanished from the soil, excites the surprise of travellers;
but the structure appears to have been protected, during the dark
ages, by having constituted part of a Greek church, which has since
been removed, a circumstance which is testified by the remains
of rough walling seen above the principal cornice, and the relics
of Christian painting observed on it, which are spoken of in the
travels of the learned Dr. Chandler8. LED-[]

s The front of a gate at Caius College, Cambridge, has a slight resemblance to
this arch ; it was erected about 1557, after the design of John of Padua, and " the
copy, although offering a paltry imitation, and upon an insignificant scale," Dr.
Clarke says, was the first specimen of Grecian architecture erected in Great Bri-
tain. A facsimile of the Arch of Theseus was executed under the direction of
Stuart himself, for Lord Anson, at his seat at Shuckborough, in the county of Staf-
ford. The taste for triumphal arches, derived from the Romans, has been generally
adopted by modern European sovereigns on the successes of their armsj and even
the Chinese construct monuments of a similar character: indeed public and fre-
quented gates, from that of Mycense down to those of our parks, have always been