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diff --git a/75561-0.txt b/75561-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53da609 --- /dev/null +++ b/75561-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4277 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75561 *** + + + + + + Transcriber’s Note + Italic text displayed as: _italic_ + + + + +[Illustration: TROPHONIUS SLAYING AGAMEDES AT THE TREASURY OF HYRIEUS.] + + + + + SOME OLD MASTERS + OF GREEK + ARCHITECTURE + + By HARRY DOUGLAS + + CURATOR OF [Illustration: Decoration] + KELLOGG TERRACE + + [Illustration: Decoration] + + PUBLISHED AT THE + QUARTER-OAK + GREAT BARRINGTON, + MASS., 1899 [Illustration: Decoration] + + + + + _Copyright, 1899_, + BY HARRY DOUGLAS. + + + + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + + + + TO EDWARD + FRANCIS + SEARLES + + WHOSE APPRECIATION OF THE HARMONIES OF ART, AND + WHOSE HIGH IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE HAVE FOUND + EXPRESSION IN MANY ENDURING FORMS, THIS BOOK IS + RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + + + +PREFACE + + +The temptation to wander, with all the recklessness of an amateur, +into the traditions of the best architecture, which necessarily could +be found only in the history of early Hellenic art, awakened in the +author a desire to ascertain who were the individual artists primarily +responsible for those architectural standards, which have been accepted +without rival since their creation. The search led to some surprise +when it was found how little was known or recorded of them, and how +great appeared to be the indifference in which they were held by nearly +all the writers upon ancient art, as well as by their contemporary +historians and biographers. The author therefore has gone into the +field of history, tradition and fable, with a basket on his arm, as it +were, to cull some of the rare and obscure flowers of this artistic +family, dropping into the basket also such facts directly or indirectly +associated with the architects of ancient Greece, or their art, as +interested him personally. The basket is here set down, containing, +if nothing more, at least a brief allusion to no less than eighty-two +architects of antiquity. The fact is perfectly appreciated that many +fine specimens may have been overlooked; that scant justice has been +done those gathered, and that the basket is far too small to contain +all that so rich a field could offer. + +This book, therefore, aims at nothing more than a superficial glance +at the subject, and the author will be content if he has accomplished +anything toward bringing those great geniuses of a noble art into a +little modern light, who have been left very much to themselves in one +of the gloomiest chambers of a deep obscurity. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + 1. POPULAR APPRECIATION OF ARCHITECTS, 1 + + 2. MYTHICAL AND ARCHAIC ARCHITECTS AND + BUILDERS, 24 + + 3. ORIGINATORS OF THE “THREE ORDERS,” 49 + + 4. EARLY GRECIAN ARCHITECTS, 63 + + 5. ARCHITECTURAL EPOCH OF PERICLES, 90 + + 6. ARCHITECTS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES, 103 + + 7. LATER GREEK ARCHITECTS, 136 + + 8. ALEXANDRIAN ERA, AND ROMAN SPOLIATION, 148 + + 9. ALEXANDRIAN ARCHITECTS, 164 + + INDEX OF ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTORS, 185 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE POPULAR APPRECIATION OF ARCHITECTS. + + +Of all the fine arts none more completely answers for its _raison +d’être_ than architecture. In this art alone do we find the harmonious +mingling of æsthetical fancy with utilitarian purpose. It is this +feature of usefulness that completes its well-rounded perfection, +rather than detracts from it, and dignifies its mission of existence. +Architecture, in its capacity to draw to its enrichment the other +arts, may be compared to the polished orator, whose purpose is to +sway the judgment of his audience by forensic effort, embellishing +his language with the flowers of rhetoric, adapting his gestures to +graceful emphasis, and controlling his voice to suit the light and +shade of his thought. So sculpture has been stimulated by architecture +and has contributed to its ornamentation; painting has been invoked to +the highest accomplishments, and music has awakened within its walls +voice and harmony. “The progress of other arts depends on that of +architecture,” Sir William Chambers very truly says. “When building +is encouraged, painting, sculpture, gardening and all other decorative +arts flourish of course, and these have an influence on manufactures, +even to the minutest mechanic productions; for design is of universal +advantage, and stamps a value on the most trifling performance.” + +It is perhaps not a little odd that despite its pre-eminent importance, +and the high rank which it has ever assumed, from that early time when +the first rays of dawning civilization began to warm the latent germs +of culture and refinement in human nature, to the present day, it is +the only art that has not, with very rare and isolated exceptions, +stamped renown upon those who have practised it as a profession, and +lifted the artist into the lasting remembrance and gratitude of the +admirers of his works. How greatly the painter, the sculptor, the +musician, are identified with their arts, and the products of their +brush, chisel or pen! how great has been their praise, how lasting and +unstinted the esteem in which they have been held! but how reserved +has been the applause that has encouraged the architect who has given +to the world the grand and noble results of his skill and genius, and +how soon he himself has been forgotten! It happens only too often that +it is the name of the distinguished painter that stamps the value of +his canvas rather than the merits of the picture itself. The title +of a beautiful piece of sculptured marble is not asked with greater +eagerness than that of the artist who created it. Bach and Beethoven +and Mozart are played and sung to the popular audiences rather than +their fugues, their sonatas and their symphonies. + +But what is known of the artists who have reared the greatest monuments +of enduring architecture? Their personality, and even their names, +appear to have faded from popular recollection. This seems to have +been the fact from the earliest days of the art in Greece and Rome +to the present time. The exceptions are so rare, throughout all the +intervening ages, and the waving prominence of the art, that they might +almost be numbered upon the fingers of a single hand. + +The reader, if he is not a professional architect, or an amateur who +has read deeply in his favorite subject, can arrive at the truth of +this seemingly exaggerated statement, if he will lay aside this book +for a moment and try to recall the names of the designers of some of +the more conspicuous monuments of architecture he has visited at home +or abroad. + +“I will erect such a building, but I will hang it up in the air,” +exclaimed Michael Angelo when he saw the dome of the Pantheon at Rome. +The reader may remember this boast of the great Renaissance genius, the +fulfilment of it in the colossal dome of St. Peter’s, and be satisfied +that his memory has captured one architect of celebrity. If the +beautiful Florentine campanile of Giotto looms up in his recollection +he will think at once also of that early artist, but perhaps not more +so in connection with that ornate tower than in association with the +Pre-Raphaelites. Of course, he will not overlook Inigo Jones, whose +very name is stamped upon the memory by reason of its peculiarity, +or Sir Christopher Wren, the creator of St. Paul’s, and the British +idol. If he is an admirer of the picturesque architecture of Venetian +churches and palaces, the Italian Palladio may not escape him; and +if of French Renaissance, the Louvre façade will possibly suggest +Perrault, and the Parisian roofs Mansard. If he is a native of our +“Modern Athens,” of course, the peril in which the classic front of +the State House rested for a time, at the hands of a _fin de siècle_ +legislature, will not permit him to forget Bulfinch, and Trinity Church +will bring to memory the only Richardson. But aside from a few names +such as have been mentioned, with possibly a sprinkling of others +fixed in the memory, by incident or association, the average reader, +however well acquainted he may be with the numerous luminaries of the +other arts, will be unable to say who was responsible for the beauty +and nobility of many buildings that have individualized the cities and +towns of their location to the art-loving world. Who, for example, +can tell of the authors of the cathedrals at Milan and Siena, Cologne +and Strassburg, Rheims and Amiens, Wells and Litchfield; the Giralda +at Seville; the Church of the Invalides at Paris; the Strozzi Palace +at Florence; the Henry VII. chapel at Westminster Abbey; the much and +justly admired south façade of the old City Hall in New York; Grace +Church in that city; the Capitol building in Washington, or that model +of colonial architecture in America, the Executive Mansion? + +It is not, however, the purpose to here speculate too extensively upon +the apparent lack of justice on the part of the general public which +has been done the architects of all climes and times, but to gather +together a few facts concerning the Old Masters of early Grecian +architecture that are not popularly known, and recall some of the +leading lights of that art so inimitably practised by the Hellenic +people during their progress from archaic darkness to the zenith of +their æsthetic culture. + +It is but repeating a well-worn truth to say that the influence of +the early Grecian architects upon the followers of their art in all +countries of recognized civilized enlightenment, throughout the ages +that have succeeded them, has been an almost dominant one. Robert +Adam, the architectural authority in the time of George III., says, +in the introduction to his work on the ruins of the palace of the +Emperor Diocletian: “The buildings of the ancients are in architecture +what the works of nature are with respect to the other arts: they +serve as models which we should imitate and as standards by which we +ought to judge; for this reason they who aim at eminence, either in +the knowledge or practice of architecture, find it necessary to view +with their own eyes the works of the ancients which remain, that they +may catch from them those ideas of grandeur and beauty which nothing, +perhaps, but such an observation can suggest.” + +It is equally true that no country that has experienced an evolution +in intelligence and culture, during the twenty-five hundred years that +have fled since the time of Pericles, has succeeded in introducing any +new school of architecture, that has not been compelled to draw upon +ancient Greece for many of the most important and essential features of +the art it could only modify, but never wholly re-create. + +The Gothic, or pointed-arch style, that sprung into such beautiful +being in the thirteenth century, and reigned a queen within the +Christian countries of Europe for several centuries thereafter, came +more nearly answering for an original scheme of architecture than +perhaps any other of equal importance, and yet had it been deprived of +the Grecian props that helped to sustain it, it must have fallen to the +ground. + +In the Gothic the effort was made to incline the inherited principles +of architecture more closely toward the spiritual progress of the +people, but when at last it had run its course, and was dethroned, +owing to a realization of the fact that even a closer allegiance +to classic models could be made to answer still better spiritual +requirements, how completely did the artistic temperament of the people +revert to Greece and Rome, as the light of their returning inspiration +and truth appeared with the dawn of the sixteenth century. Renaissance +architecture and Renaissance art swept Europe like a wave, and the +people turned with reactionary enthusiasm to the ancient standards of +art, as they did to the study of classic authors, and to the writing of +even Greek and Latin verses. + +The debt of gratitude, therefore, which posterity has owed the +originators in ancient Greece of the three noble orders of +architecture—namely, the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian—can scarcely +be overestimated, for it is to those three orders or styles that +all subsequent architects have turned for the fundamental truths of +their art. They may not have followed each or all with conventional +strictness; but they have not succeeded in escaping from borrowing many +of the features there everlastingly fixed by the unerring geniuses of +classic times. + + “Famous Greece! + That source of art, and cultivated thought, + Which they to Rome, and Romans hither brought.” + +The uses to which the Greek and Roman architectural forms, principles +and ornaments have been put since the birth of the Renaissance have +broadened largely, and would seem to preclude any possibility of their +ever again falling into even partial desuetude. It is not only in +the more pretentious buildings, monuments and ornamental structures +that abound so plentifully in the populous and wealthy cities that +classic models and features are so liberally employed, but even the +unpretentious and simple rural homes cannot escape their use. What +is more common than the Doric mutule or Corinthian modillion, so +frequently seen in the cornices of modern houses, or the Ionic dentils +that show their teeth below a piazza roof or over the door casing of a +colonial dwelling? The various combinations of the fret, the egg and +dart, the bead and fillet, the honeysuckle, the acanthus and many other +Grecian _motifs_ of ornamentation, are met with constantly, not only in +buildings of a public or private nature, but in furniture and fresco, +in interior decoration, and in enhancing the attractiveness of almost +any article of use or ornament. Even the simple ogee moulding, which is +employed, if nowhere else, about the door panels of the humblest abode, +is classic in its origin, and had its archetype in the entablatures +of those stately and beautiful temples dedicated to the pagan gods of +ancient Greece. + +It must not be inferred, however, that all the individual features +employed in the Greek orders found their birth in the brains of +Hellenic architects. Sir Jeremy Bentham says: + + “From Egypt arts their progress made to Greece, + Wrapt in the fable of the Golden Fleece.” + +This statement, however, though poetical, is much too sweeping to be +literally correct as to architecture. The Greeks borrowed a little—a +very little—not only from the Egyptians, but from the Assyrians, the +Chaldeans, the Persians, and other western Asiatic races as well; but +so altered what they had borrowed, so refined it and entwined it with +original conceptions of their own, that the captive features could +have returned again to their native lands without fear of detection. +Indeed as to the origin of some of the architectural features which +the Greeks are supposed to have taken from the countries of a more +unrefined people to the south and east of them, and especially as to +the volute, so conspicuous in the Ionic capital, which is supposed to +have been a Persian conception, there is much dispute. + +Professor T. Roger Smith, of London, very truly observes: “We cannot +put a finger upon any feature of Egyptian, Assyrian or Persian +architecture the influence of which has survived to the present day, +except such as were adopted by the Greeks. On the other hand, there is +no feature, no ornament, nor even any principle of design which the +Greek architects employed that can be said to have now become obsolete.” + +In discussing the three primary orders of which mention has been +made, and to which he adds the Tuscan and Composite, both of Italian +or Roman origin, and closely dependent upon the original three, Sir +William Chambers remarks: “The ingenuity of man has hitherto not +been able to produce a sixth order, though large premiums have been +offered, and numerous attempts been made by men of first-rate talents, +to accomplish it. Such is the fettered human imagination, such the +scanty store of its ideas, that Doric, Ionic and Corinthian have ever +floated uppermost, and all that has been produced amounts to nothing +more than different arrangements and combinations of their parts, with +some trifling deviations scarcely deserving notice; the whole tending +generally more to diminish than to increase the beauty of the ancient +orders.... The suppression of parts of the ancient orders, with a view +to produce novelty, has of late years been practised among us with +full as little success; and although it is not wished to restrain +sallies of imagination, nor to discourage genius from attempting to +invent, yet it is apprehended that attempts to alter the primary forms +invented by the ancients, and established by the concurring approbation +of many ages, must ever be attended with dangerous consequences, must +always be difficult, and seldom, if ever, successful.” Thus is seen the +marvellous discretion and judgment exercised by the Grecian architects +in selecting from contemporary art that alone which was best to +perpetuate, and thus is well expressed in the statement of indisputable +fact, a tribute to their originality and creative genius. + +And who were these Old Masters of classic architecture—older in point +of service to their art by thousands of years than Giotto and Raphael +and Michael Angelo and Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, and many +others who might be mentioned, and who in campanile and cathedral, +in public building and private palace, in monument and mausoleum, +have proved themselves justly entitled to the laurels with which they +have been crowned, but who nevertheless are but disciples of Hellenic +and Roman masters? Where do we find the biographies of the original +Old Masters of architecture recorded? Where can we turn to read of +their lives, of their deeds and achievements, of their aspirations +and ambitions, of their shortcomings and their foibles? Where are +written down those anecdotes and incidents of personal interest, so +entertaining in association with their works or their art? What, in +fact, were their names? There is comparatively little recorded of the +lives of the Greek and Roman architects with which to answer these +questions; strange as it may appear, even their names are unfamiliar, +and in many important instances are forgotten altogether. Among that +large galaxy of brilliant men which Greece in her prime produced, who +figured prominently in almost every walk of life, who were great in +war and in peace, in philosophy and poetry, in satire and history, +in oratory and valor, and as great, if not greater than in all, in +statuary and sculpture—a galaxy clinging to the memory in all ages of +human progress, because never excelled, the name of a Grecian architect +is a strange sound, and does not ring in tune, if it is ever heard at +all, with the names enrolled upon the list of Greek immortals. + +The sculptors and statuaries of ancient Greece are especially well +remembered in the popular mind, and Myron and Phidias and Praxiteles +and Polycletus call for no introduction to the ordinarily informed +lover of art; not so the designer of the Parthenon or the Temple of +Theseus, or the Erechtheum, or the Choragic monument of Lysicrates. It +is strange that the artist who modelled or chiselled a bull or a cow +or a Faun or a nude Venus, or any pagan god or goddess, however much +we may praise the excellence of his skill, should be remembered by +posterity, while the artist, his contemporary, who designed the most +beautiful and graceful buildings of all time, which in their glory were +the pride of their people, and which in their decay and ruin are still +the loadstones that attract pilgrims from the most distant lands, is +forgotten, and, it would appear, denied almost the humblest mention. +Can it not be said of the Grecian architects, as well as the Grecian +sculptors, that under the magic of their touch “Stones leap’d to form, +and rocks began to live”? Were not the temples they reared in all +the pride of surpassing beauty, which tempted the sculptor’s caress +on frieze and pediment, and which gave shelter to those works of the +statuary’s art which Shakespeare recalls so vividly when he draws the +simile: + + “They spake not a word. + But, like dumb statues, or unbreathing stones, + Stared at each other, and look’d deadly pale,” + +as much entitled to give immortality to their creators as the works, +however competitive, of other branches of art to their authors? And +still so incidentally and indifferently have the historians and +biographers of their time alluded to the Grecian architects, that +little or nothing is to be found to quench that desire to know of them +personally, which an interest in their grand achievements may well +awaken. + +Did we not know it to be otherwise, we might think that they, too, +were like the poor architect of whom Goethe speaks: “He is employed +in lavishing all the luxury of his fancy upon halls from which he +is to be ever excluded, and display his ingenuity in bestowing the +utmost convenience upon apartments he must not enjoy.” But it does not +appear that any social discrimination was exercised against the Greek +architects to cast a shadow upon their present or future fame. + +It is popularly believed that the great buildings of the ancient world +were very long in the process of construction—that they, in fact, took +many decades and sometimes even hundreds of years to complete. If this +were true it might in a measure explain the obscurity in which their +architects have been left, inasmuch as the original designer of the +building might have been forgotten ere the last of his successors had +finished the work he had undertaken. But this is not altogether the +fact. Even the pyramid of Cheops—that colossal marvel of the creative +genius of man—we are informed by some authorities took but thirty +years to construct, ten of which were given to the building of a +road leading to the site of the pyramid, for the greater facility in +handling the huge blocks of stone to be used. Neither were the temples +and public edifices of Greece and Rome, as a rule, long in building, +being generally undertaken and finished during the influential period +of a public man’s career, or the reign of a single emperor. There +were, of course, exceptions to this rule, as, for example, the temple +of Apollo at Delphi, that erected to Diana at Ephesus, and that +dedicated to Jupiter at Athens; but in nearly all such instances it +will be found that the temples were destroyed and rebuilt during the +long interval which is supposed to have passed from the time when +their foundations were first laid, to that which found them again in +all respects completed structures; or, if not destroyed and the work +undertaken anew, the delay was caused by some political influence which +contributed to check the continuous prosecution of the work, implying +no procrastination on the part of the original builders. But even in +the most of such cases the names of the various architects who were +from time to time associated with the work are at least known, if their +biographies are not more fully recorded. + +It may be stated broadly that both the Greeks and the Romans were +rapid builders when the size of their edifices is taken into account. +Especially is this true of the time of Pericles, if we are to believe +the testimony of Plutarch: “Every architect strived to surpass the +magnificence of design with the elegance of execution, yet still +the most wonderful circumstance was the expedition with which they +[the buildings] were completed. Many edifices, each of which seemed +to require the labor of successive ages, were finished during the +administration of one prosperous man.” And the great biographer also +adds: “... Hence we have the more reason to wonder that the structures +raised by Pericles should be built in so short a time, and yet built +for ages, for each of them as soon as finished had the venerable air +of antiquity; so now they are old they have the freshness of a modern +building. A bloom is diffused over them which preserves their aspect +untarnished by time, as if they were animated by a spirit of perpetual +youth and unfading elegance.” + +Another mistaken idea is that the sculptors of ancient times were also +architects. Some instances occur where, like the Italian, Michael +Angelo, a prominent sculptor of Greece or Rome, made architecture one +of his accomplishments, but they were not as numerous as they are +supposed to have been, and the rule seems to be the reverse: that the +sculptors of antiquity had no technical knowledge of architecture, and +that the arts were quite as distinctly practised as professions in +early times as they are to-day. + +There remains to be presented only one other reason for the +indifference shown the early architects by their contemporary writers +and public, which is so well expressed by an English historian in his +discussion of the Coliseum at Rome, that it may well be quoted as a +type of the excuse offered by apologists of the same class: “The name +of the architect to whom the great work of the Coliseum was entrusted +has not come down to us.[1] The ancients seem themselves to have +regarded this name as a matter of little interest; nor in fact do they +generally care to specify the authorship of their most illustrious +buildings. The reason is obvious. The forms of ancient art in this +department were almost wholly conventional, and the limits of design +within which they were executed gave little room for the display of +original taste and special character.... It is only in periods of +eclecticism and Renaissance, when the taste of the architect has wider +scope and may lead the eye instead of following it, that interest +attaches to his personal merit. Thus it is that the Coliseum, the most +conspicuous type of Roman civilization, the monument which divides +the admiration of strangers in modern Rome with St. Peter’s itself, +is nameless and parentless, while every stage in the construction +of the great Christian temple, the creation of a modern revival, is +appropriated with jealous care to its special claimants.” In other +words, the pupil is a fitter artist to awaken the personal interest of +those who admire his works than his master; and the revived imitation +of more consequence to the public than the original model. If this +were true, why should the Coliseum, “the most conspicuous type of +Roman civilization,” upon which the pilgrims of the North, as we are +informed by Gibbon, based the longevity of Rome itself, when in their +rude enthusiasm they gave expression to the proverb, “As long as the +Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome will +fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall,” _divide_ the admiration of +the stranger with St. Peter’s? Should it not, rather, be subordinate +to the Christian cathedral of Bramante, Raphael and Michael Angelo? +Is there not a touch of the _reductio ad absurdum_ in this argument? +Such reasoning does not seem to be quite obvious upon other grounds +as well. If it is the fact that the ancients regarded the names of +their architects as of little interest, and their buildings as wholly +conventional, why does Vitruvius speak of four of the principal temples +of Greece as “having raised their architects to the summit of renown”? +Why is it that Rhœcus and Theodorus, Ictinus, Mnesicles, Dinocrates, +Detrianus, Apollodorus and many other architects—to whom more +particular mention will be made later—are remembered in ancient history +with more or less circumstantiality, not only in association with their +works—all conventional, if we are to accept this writer’s judgment—but +also on account of their individual merit, while the architects of the +buildings which departed most from that same conventionality, both in +plan and detail, as, for example, the Erechtheum, the original Odeon +of Pericles and even the Coliseum itself, where: + + “Firm Doric pillars formed the solid base, + The fair Corinthian crown the higher space, + And all below is strength, and all above is grace,” + +are lost in the ocean of oblivion? + +Do not our modern authors overlook the fact that the architects of +their own age share, as a rule, in the same popular indifference, and +that the period of revival is no exception to the period of inception; +that the one has inherited from the other not only the forms and +principles of its art, but the same neglect of its artists? + +Whether this is true or not, the fact must remain and be accepted with +patience or impatience, as we please, that there is little preserved +for us by the ancient writers in respect to their architects. Two +rather conspicuous exceptions, however, occur to this general rule in +respect to Pausanias, the Lydian, and Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman. + +Pausanias lived toward the close of the second century after Christ. +He was a great traveller and a close observer, his observations having +been confined principally to works of art, such as public buildings, +temples and statues, which he mentions in direct and simple language. +He visited most of the states of Greece at a time when that country +was still rich in her treasures of art, and what he has to say of what +he saw there would tend to indicate that while he was by no means a +critic or a connoisseur, he was still a faithful and minute recorder of +what appealed to his taste or excited his curiosity. + +Vitruvius, however, was not only a writer on architecture, but a +professional architect as well, who resided in Rome about a century +earlier than Pausanias, or in the time of Augustus. He is practically +the only writer of his time who has given us technical information +concerning the ancient buildings. Vitruvius wrote his treatises upon +architecture at a very advanced age, and, it would appear, much in +defence of the pure Greek models which were even in that time being +corrupted. The frankness with which he hopes for fame by reason of his +book, and exposes his poverty as well as the unprofessional practices +of his brother architects, is not the least attractive feature of his +discourse: “But I, Cæsar,” he exclaims, “have not sought to amass +wealth by the practice of my art, having been contented with a small +fortune and reputation, than desirous of abundance accompanied by a +want of reputation. It is true I have acquired but little, yet I still +hope, by this publication, to become known to posterity. Neither is it +wonderful that I am known to but few. Other architects canvass and +go about soliciting employment, but my preceptors instilled into me +a sense of the propriety of being requested and not of requesting to +be entrusted, inasmuch the ingenuous man will blush and feel shame in +asking a favour; for the givers of a favour, and not the receivers, +are courted. What must he suspect who is solicited by another to be +entrusted with the expenditure of his money, but that it is done for +the sake of gain and emolument? Hence, the ancients entrusted their +works to those architects only who were of good family, and well +brought up, thinking it better to trust the modest than the bold and +arrogant man. These artists only instructed their own children or +relations, having regard to their integrity, so that property might be +safely committed to their charge. When, therefore, I see this noble +science in the hands of the unlearned and unskilful of men, not only +ignorant of architecture, but of everything relative to buildings, I +cannot blame proprietors who, relying on their own intelligence, are +their own architects; since, if the business is to be conducted by the +unskilful, there is at least more satisfaction in laying out money at +one’s own pleasure rather than at that of another person.” + +Vitruvius also epitomized in his books on architecture much that had +been written prior to his time by his professional brethren of Greece +and Rome, and so preserved something of what otherwise might have been +entirely lost. + +Allusion has been made to these two writers with some particularity, +for the reason that they will be more quoted than any others in the +course of this volume, but it must not be inferred that they are alone +responsible for all the knowledge which has come down to us respecting +the Greek and Roman architects, little and unsatisfactory as it is. + +Although it has been shown that the historians and biographers of +ancient Greece made no attempt to treat architects with especial favor, +it would not be just, however, to close this chapter without quoting +from Homer to prove that lie, at least, could rank them as among those +who, by serving the people in the highest sense, were entitled to +unusual hospitality: + + “... What man goes ever forth + To bid a stranger to his house, unless + The stranger be of those whose office is + To serve the people, be he seer, or leech, + Or architect, or poet heaven-inspired, + Whose song is gladly heard?...” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] There is an old ecclesiastical tradition, which is much doubted, +that the architect of the Coliseum was a Christian by the name of +Gaudentius, who suffered martyrdom in its arena, and that the services +of thousands of Jews contributed to its erection. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MYTHICAL AND ARCHAIC ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS. + + +History does not probe so deeply into the earliest annals of the races +that inhabited the Peloponnesian peninsula, that it does not show them +to have been pre-eminent as builders; nor does it follow the ancient +Greek people throughout the long ages that spanned their evolution and +decadence, that it does not find them in all the stages through which +they passed, leaving at least some of their walls, temples or monuments +to resist the ravages of all time, and the decaying influences of the +elements. They built, therefore, not only well, but perhaps better than +they knew, and have proved that if the creations of their intellects +were immortal, as we know, the works of their hands were not altogether +perishable. + +The Pelasgic tribes, who were the first of which there is any record to +have inhabited Greece, were great wall-builders, and past-masters of +defensive architecture in those early ages. Although we may not have +the names of the individual architects among them, we have their racial +works still before us to evidence the fact that whoever the architects +were, they knew their business eminently well. The Acropolis at Athens +possesses the finest example that remains of Pelasgic mural work, in +the fortified retaining wall which surrounds it, and which is sometimes +called after the race that built it, the Pelasgicum. + +It is claimed also by some authorities that the Pelasgi were the +original architects and builders of the “Long Walls” that connected +Athens with her seaport gates, and of such parts of the peribolus as +were not the authentic work of the builders under Themistocles and +Cimon, and subsequent architects to be hereafter mentioned. + +The Cyclopes, who belonged to Pelasgic times, were likewise remarkable +wall-builders, lending their name to a kind of mural work in a manner +original with them, and having the attributes of great solidity and +endurance. The ruins of houses and other structures erected by them +have been found also at Tiryus and Mycenæ, on the plain of Argos. + +Speaking of the circuit wall at Tiryus, Pausanias describes it as +being “composed of unwrought stones, each of which is so large that a +team of mules cannot even shake the smallest one;” and of Mycenæ, the +more important city, a short distance from Tiryus, where the circular +treasury of Atreus and other evidences of Cyclopean architecture have +been excavated by Dr. Henry Schliemann, Euripides asks the question: +“Do you call the city of Perseus the handiwork of the Cyclopes?” + +Modern archæologists are inclined to the opinion that the Cyclopean +builders were not, as originally supposed, the one-eyed giants whom +Ulysses encountered in his voyages, as related in the Homeric legends, +but an entirely distinct Thracian tribe, which derived its name from +king Cyclops. After being expelled from Thrace, where were their early +homes, they migrated to Crete and Lycia; thence following the fortunes +of Prœtus, and giving him protection with the gigantic walls which +they constructed as against Acrisius, his twin brother, who was very +quarrelsome, as twin brothers not often are. + +These Cyclopean walls, which are still to be found throughout Greece, +as already stated, and also in some parts of Italy, were made of +huge, uncut polygonous stones, sometimes twenty or thirty feet wide, +piled upon each other without cement, frequently irregularly, with +smaller stones filling up the interstices, but occasionally in regular +horizontal rows. There were, in fact, not only several kinds of these +walls, but several eras in which they were built as well. + +It is not, however, the intention here to discuss the nature and extent +of the Pelasgic and Cyclopean constructions, it being sufficient to +recall the fact that so far as the Pelasgians generally are concerned, +they were not only the progenitors of most of the early architectural +monuments of eastern Europe, but were skilled in the arts and learned +in the fables of the gods as well, bequeathing both religious rites and +many arts to their children, the Greeks. It remains only to add, also, +that so closely were they identified with the art of building that it +is believed their very name is derived from their leading pursuit, +for it is thought that the term Pelasgi may be interpreted to mean +“stone-builders” or “stone-workers.” + +In this allusion to the Pelasgians as builders, it was stated at the +outset that the names of the individual architects among them are +not known; this was perhaps unfair to Æacus, if he can be ranked as +an architect, and who is classed as a Pelasgian, although of divine +parentage. + +Æacus was a son of Jupiter by Ægina, daughter of the river god, Asopus, +and, like the Cyclopeans, he was particularly expert in the matter of +walls. He was as well a very just and pious individual or myth, who +was frequently called upon to hold the scales of justice, not only +as between mortals, but also immortals. He was born on the Island +of Ægina, the temporary residence of his mother, after whom it was +named. At the time of his birth the island was uninhabited. This very +unpleasant condition of isolation for the mother and son was quickly +remedied by Jupiter, who changed the ants that abounded there into men, +placing Æacus over them as king. + +Æacus always kept on the very best of terms with the gods, propitiating +them in many ways, and at last becoming a great favorite with them. +Indeed, so strong was his influence in celestial circles that at one +time when Greece was afflicted with a drought, in consequence of a +murder that had been committed, the Delphic oracle declared that +the only person who could help the situation at all was Æacus. He +was accordingly appealed to and persuaded to petition the gods for +relief. The result was that his petition was favorably answered. Æacus +thereupon erected a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on Mount Panhellenion +to show his gratitude, and possibly to keep himself in that position +where he might trespass upon the good-nature of his heavenly friends +again at some future time, should there be necessity. + +Æacus surrounded his island with high walls to protect his people +against pirates. It is probable that these walls attracted the +admiration of Apollo and Neptune, and prompted them to retain the +professional services of their builder to assist them in erecting +the walls of Troy. But here it was that Æacus failed, for as one +diamond can only be accurately judged when placed in comparison with +another diamond, so Æacus, however successful he may have been as a +wall-builder by himself, was outclassed when he came into competition +with the occult knowledge of Apollo and Neptune. + +The story is that when the Trojan walls were completed, three dragons +appeared and rushed upon them to test their strength. The two dragons +which attacked those parts of the walls built by the celestial +associates of Æacus had their heads broken for their pains, but the one +which flew at the mortal’s share of the work made a hole in the wall +which let it into the city. Apollo at once prophesied that Troy would +eventually fall through the hands of the Æacids, which prophecy, of +course, proved true. Whether this failure had anything to do with the +future of Æacus or not, it would be difficult to say, but the fact is +that after his death he became one of the three judges in Hades, with +special jurisdiction over the Europeans, which necessarily insured his +being overworked until the end of time. + +With a people possessed of so large and varied an assortment of +deities, suited to every possible human need and shade of mortal +endeavor, it would be strange indeed if there was not some mythical or +legendary character among the Greek gods to preside over architecture, +if not as a distinct art, at all events in association with some of its +kindred branches. That the Greeks did not ignore such a necessity is +found to have been the case, and the great Dædalus rises most admirably +to the occasion in personifying the early infancy of architecture as +well as sculpture and wood-carving. + +Dædalus, like most of his spiritual relations and associates, led a +life of much romance and adventure, not unmixed with hardship and +trial. He was either a native Athenian or Cretan, a point upon which +there is some dispute, as well as upon another involving his parentage. +It is perhaps sufficient to know that Dædalus flourished in the age of +Minos and Theseus, and was introduced more or less into the legends +pertaining to those two early characters. + +It is upon Dædalus that responsibility must rest for the first +introduction of jealousy into the personality of artists, a vice, +by the way, which they have never been quite able to shake off from +his time to the present. Dædalus was rather sorely afflicted with +this unfortunate trait, and to its early exhibition is due much of +his subsequent misfortune. It was in connection with his devotion to +sculpture that his jealousy first involved him in trouble. He became +very expert as a carver generally, and undertook to instruct his nephew +Perdix in the art. In due time and under the careful tutorage of his +uncle, Perdix also became proficient, and in a moment of inspiration +is said to have invented that very useful tool of the mechanic, the +saw. This it was that excited Dædalus, who, in a fit of jealous rage, +threw his nephew over the Pelasgic walls of the Acropolis, killing him +instantly as he supposed. + +Dædalus was, of course, condemned to death for this unseemly and +cruel manifestation of envy, but managed to escape and fly to Crete. +There his professional reputation had preceded him, and he obtained +the friendship of king Minos. In Crete he developed his latent +architectural skill, and built a very elaborate and intricate dwelling +for the hideous monster Minotaur, since known as the celebrated +labyrinth at Cnossus. The story of how Theseus, with the connivance of +Ariadne, the charming daughter of Minos, slew this monster, is one of +the most thrilling of the mythological legends, and is quite familiar. + +Just how Dædalus incurred the displeasure of Minos does not seem to +be very clearly stated by the early authorities. It appears that he +was in some way entangled with the creation of a wooden cow, also with +Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos, and even with the birth of the horrible +Minotaur. Possibly it may have been Minos who this time became jealous. +However that may be, the friendship which had existed between Dædalus +and the king finally became strained, and the former was compelled to +fly the country, which he did in a very literal way, as king Minos +had seized all the ships on the coast of the island, cutting off, +in consequence, the only means of escape. The architect, however, +possessed much ingenuity and inventive genius of his own, even to a +more marked degree than that manifested by the nephew he had dropped +over the Athenian precipice, and with the aid of some feathers, a +little wax, and Pasiphaë, who secretly contributed her assistance, he +manufactured a pair of wings for himself, and another pair for his son, +Icarus, who was with him at the time. Thus it will be seen that the +first flying machines were invented by an architect. + +[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF DÆDALUS AND ICARUS.] + +When the father and son started for Sicily, over the Ægean sea, like +a pair of huge birds, Dædalus flew conservatively and cautiously, being +careful not to rise too near the sun, where it was supposed by the +ancients to be very hot; but Icarus, with the spirit of youth and the +enjoyment of the exhilaration consequent upon the novelty of his method +of locomotion, gave a deaf ear to the protests of his father, and, in +emulation of Apollo, soared so high that the sun melted the wax in his +wings. His feathers flew off, and down he dropped into the waves below. +He was drowned, and that part of the Ægean sea into which he fell was +afterward called the Icarian sea, in commemoration of this unfortunate +accident, which Darwin has so well described in verse: + + “... With melting wax and loosened strings, + Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings; + Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air, + With limbs distorted and dishevelled hair; + His scattered plumage danced upon the wave, + And sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave. + O’er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed, + And strewed with crimson moss his marble bed; + Struck in their coral towers the passing bell, + And wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell.” + +Dædalus, who could not stop to rescue his son, continued steadily +on his course, and, attempting no experiments with his frail wings, +finally landed safely in Sicily, where he established himself again, +professionally, under the royal patronage of Cocalus, king of the +Sicani. Here he did most excellent work, until king Minos, his old +enemy, found him out, and began to make it unpleasant for him again. +Minos, hearing that Dædalus was in Sicily, sailed with a great fleet to +that island, but fortunately for the architect, his enemy was murdered +as soon as he arrived there by Cocalus or his daughter. In the mean +time Dædalus, anticipating the trouble that was in store for him, again +made an escape, this time to Sardinia, where he tarried a while, but +finally visited other countries, notably Egypt. + +These are the substantial facts of Dædalus’s career, as contained in +the earlier legends, but later Greek writers tell a much more fanciful +and improbable story of his life, which there is no urgent necessity +to believe, as the one mentioned is quite fanciful enough and probably +more authentic. They say, among other things, that Dædalus was an +astrologer, and that he taught his son that science, who, soaring above +plain truths, lost his wits and was drowned in an abyss of difficulties. + +Dædalus may have been an astrologer and may have been other things as +well, but that he was an architect cannot be doubted from the fact that +so many buildings are ascribed to him. Among his works may be mentioned +the Colymbethra, or reservoir in Sicily, from which the river Alabon +flowed into the sea; another an impregnable city near Agrigentum, in +which was the royal palace of Cocalus; still another a cave in the +territory of Selinus, in which the vapor arising from a subterranean +fire was received in such a way as to answer for a vapor bath. He +enlarged the summit of Mount Eryx for a foundation for the temple of +Venus, and he is said to have been the author of the temples of Apollo +at Capua and Cumæ, and the temple of Artemis Britomartis in Crete. In +Egypt he was the architect of a very beautiful propylæum, or vestibule +to the temple of Hephæstus at Memphis, for which he was rewarded by +being permitted to erect in it a statue of himself, the work of his own +hands. + +As a sculptor he also executed many works of art—but the architectural +side of his career can only be considered here. It will not be out +of place, however, to mention some of the inventions ascribed to him +to assist the mechanic. It is claimed for him that he was an expert +carpenter, having been taught that trade by Minerva, and that he +originated the axe, the plumb-line, the auger and glue. + +Dædalus, in fact, seems to have personified the earliest Grecian +art, and his name, which, when translated, signifies “ingenious,” or +“inventive,” stands for that period in Greece when form and shape and +expression were given inanimate substances by the use of tools and +mechanical appliances. + +When Dædalus threw his nephew over the high walls of the Acropolis, +and naturally thought that he had killed him—an opinion in which it +is apparent the people of Athens shared—he was very much mistaken, +for Minerva, the patron goddess of the city, realizing what a great +mistake it would be to allow so bright and promising a young man to go +to an early death, exercised her magic, and saved him by changing the +falling artisan into a bird, which was given his name, “Perdix,” or, as +translated, Partridge. + +To Perdix, who was especially skilful as a worker in wood, is +attributed, in addition to the invention of the saw, suggested to +him by the backbone of a fish or the teeth of a serpent, it would be +difficult to say which, the chisel, the compasses and the potter’s +wheel. Whether he invented any of these things after he became a +partridge or not is another mythical uncertainty, but probably not, as +his changed condition and feathers would have made it very awkward for +him to have done so, although most anything was possible in those days. + +Perdix is also called Talos by some writers, and Pausanias mentions him +by still another name, Calos, and states that after his death he was +buried somewhere on the road leading from the theatre in Athens to the +Acropolis. + +It might be interesting, but certainly a task beyond the scope of +this book, to mention all the mythical personages of the archaic or +early period of Grecian art, who were in a way more or less remote, +responsible for special features of artistic treatment that graced +the buildings of that time, such, for instance, as Dibutades, who was +the first to make masks on the edges of gutter tiles. Dibutades was +a sculptor, and the idea which he originated is said to have been +suggested to him by seeing his daughter trace the lines of her lover’s +profile around the shadow which it cast upon a wall. He filled in the +lines with clay, and, moulding it to the face, gave to the world the +art of modelling. + +Among the artists belonging to the Dædalien, or legendary period of +Greece, who may be classed more distinctively as architects, however, +were Polycritus, who had to do with the building of the town of +Tanagra by Poemander, and Pteras, who was supposed to have been the +architect of the second temple to Apollo at Delphi. The legend is that +the first temple was made of branches of the wild laurel from Tempe, +and that Pteras constructed the second of wax and bees’ wings—rather +an unsubstantial building material, it might be inferred. Eucheir, a +painter, and Chersiphron and Smilis, architects and statuaries, are +also of this traditional period, and were representative of skill in +their arts. + +All these names, however, although supposed to have been originally +purely mythological, were probably later assumed by or given to mortals +who were specially expert in the particular branch of art which the +name taken suggested. These individuals, to complicate matters, no +doubt, became entangled with the early mythological stories, and +finally lost their identity completely, or to such an extent as to make +it quite impossible to separate the fact from the fiction in their +respective cases. + +An illustration of such a confusion is to be found in respect to the +architects, Rhœcus and Theodorus, who had to do with the building of +the temple of Hera at Samos, for the worship of which goddess Samos was +celebrated, and who, in association with Smilis, were the architects of +the labyrinth at Lemnos. + +The writers who have mentioned these artists are quite numerous, and +have so differed in respect to their dates, and confounded the accounts +of their careers and achievements, that it is difficult to sift +anything like a satisfactory story from the confusion created. The +most probable deduction that has been made, however, is that Rhœcus +flourished about 640 B.C., and was a son of Phileas of Samos; that +Theodorus, the architect, was his son, and that another Theodorus, a +statuary, sometimes mistaken for the architect, was a nephew of the +architect Theodorus, the son of Telecles, also a gifted sculptor, and a +grandson of Rhœcus. + +The temple of Hera, alluded to as the work of the father and son, +was three hundred and forty-four feet long by one hundred and sixty +feet wide, and, according to the “Antiquities of Ionia,” a decastyle, +dipteral structure, or possessed of a double row of columns composed of +ten columns in each row. Pausanias thinks that the temple was of very +great antiquity, a fact apparent to him from the statue of Hera which +it contained, which was made by Smilis, of wood, as were the early +statues of Greece. + +The Lemnian labyrinth, according to Pliny, contained fifty columns +and innumerable statues, and had very remarkable massive gates, +so delicately poised that a child might open or shut them. Modern +travellers have had difficulty in finding any trace of this labyrinth, +although there is little doubt that it once existed. It is not to be +classed with the more visionary labyrinth in which the Minotaur was +caged. + +It is claimed for both Rhœcus and Theodorus that they were the first +to invent the art of casting statues in bronze or iron, but as this +art was known before their time by the Phœnicians, it is likely that +they were responsible for nothing more than having introduced it into +Greece. This is probably true also of other early mythical characters +of Greece, to whom is attributed certain inventions in the arts which +have been found since to have existed much earlier than their time in +Egypt or elsewhere. + +Theodorus is also credited with having been the architect of the old +Scias at Sparta, and of having advised the use of charcoal beneath the +foundation of the temple dedicated to Artemis, at Ephesus, as a remedy +against the dampness of the site. Theodorus was a great admirer of +his father and of the temple to Hera, which they built together. He +attested his appreciation of the latter by writing a book descriptive +of it. + +As for Smilis, who belongs to the mythical period, and whose name when +translated stands for “a knife for carving wood,” or “a sculptor’s +chisel,” he is also accredited with having been the first to devise +the art of modelling in clay. He is to be classed more as a sculptor +than an architect, but of an inferior standing to Dædalus. In fact, his +only connection with architecture, according to Pliny, seems to have +been his association with Rhœcus and Theodorus in the building of the +labyrinth at Lemnos. It is possible that even here he was employed more +in the line of a sculptor than in lending any professional assistance +as an architect. + +Pausanias mentions a pupil of Theodorus of Samos, who, it would appear, +achieved considerable distinction both as an architect and sculptor, +but more especially in the latter capacity. His name is given as +Gitiadas, and his birthplace as Lacedæmon, where he flourished about +724 B.C., as stated by some authorities, but much later according +to others. The architectural work for which he receives credit was +the temple of Athena Polionchos at Sparta, which, it is said, was +constructed entirely of bronze. It also contained a bronze statue +of the goddess of Gitiadas’s own workmanship, and many bas-reliefs +representing the labors of Hercules, the exploits of the Tyndarids, +Hephæstus releasing his mother from her chains, the Nymphs arming +Perseus for the expedition against Medusa, and other mythological +subjects, all executed in the same metal. This extensive use of bronze +suggested the name “Brazen House,” which was given the temple. It would +seem that Gitiadas was possessed of other accomplishments, and served +Minerva with equal distinction as a poet, writing his poems all in the +Doric dialect. + +A still stranger _compôte_ of fact and fable, of hypothesis and +conjecture, of celestial and terrestrial biography, is to be found in +the accounts of the brothers Agamedes and Trophonius, who were the +architects of the great temple of Apollo at Delphi, and of the treasury +of Hyrieus, king of Hyria in Bœotia. + +The temple to the beautiful and accomplished son of Jupiter and Latona, +the god of music and prophecy, as well as other things of equal or less +consequence, was the fourth to be erected upon the same site on Mount +Parnassus, in the ancient city of Delphi, known to the older poets as +Pytho, a name derived from the serpent Python which Apollo slew. In +this temple, which was the first of the four to be built with stone, +the others having been constructed out of the branches of the bay tree +and other equally perishable materials, dwelt the much respected and +frequently consulted Delphic Oracle. The spot in the temple from which +the prophetic vapor issued to inspire the priestess with second sight +was said to be the central point of the earth, and that where the two +eagles despatched by Jupiter to ascertain that point met and fell. + +Pythia, the priestess of Apollo, who gave mouth to the oracles, sat on +a sacred tripod placed over the opening from which the vapor issued, +and gave forth her words of wisdom in prose or poetry as the occasion +demanded. If in prose, her prognostications would be immediately +verified, and if in verse some time must elapse before they could be +fulfilled. Pythia was not always on duty, but could be consulted only +on certain days during the month of Busius in the spring. + +There is no doubt but that she made some very remarkable prophecies, +but, alas! it is also recorded that, like some of the political oracles +of these degenerate times, her prophetic vision was not infrequently +influenced by “a previous interview.” A notable case of this kind was +that in which the Alemæonidæ were entangled; who for political reasons +and effect rebuilt the same temple after it was destroyed by fire in +the year 548 B.C., as we shall see later. + +But we have drifted from the subject. It is claimed by some that +Agamedes was the son of Stymphalus, who was murdered and had his body +cut up in pieces, and a grandson of the old ancestor of the Arcadian +Arcas, who in turn was a son of Zeus. Others say that the father of +Agamedes was Apollo, and his mother was Epicaste, and still others +are of the opinion that his parents were none other than Zeus himself +and Iocaste, another name for Epicaste, and that Trophonius was his +son. All this genealogy is, however, disturbed if we accept the more +probable one, that he was a son of Erginus, king of Orchomenus, and +that he was a brother of Trophonius. By the way, Trophonius is also +said to have been a son of Apollo. When these two young men attained +to manhood they became very expert in the art of building temples +to the gods and palaces for kings. Thus having established enviable +reputations in their profession, they were retained to plan and +supervise the works mentioned. + +It is in respect to these architects that the first authentic account +of a misunderstanding as to professional compensation is related. +It must not be thought that because some of the early architects +were related to the nobility of Mount Olympus, they were any the +less mercenary than are architects in our own time, or were any more +inclined to work for nothing than are their professional descendants of +to-day. + +Plutarch tells us that Agamedes and Trophonius, after working hard upon +the Delphic temple, and not receiving any pay, began to lose faith in +the mortals who were backing the undertaking. As they grew more and +more dubious about their compensation, and possibly having notes or +bills to meet, they finally decided to appeal directly to Apollo, in +whose glorification the shrine had been built. + +Apollo, who was consulted through the Delphic Oracle, informed them +that he must have time to think the matter over. In other words, he +could not be hurried in his decision, but would give them an answer +at the end of seven days. It is not unlikely that the Oracle saw an +occasion here where it might be a matter of financial prudence to +consult with the other side before rendering a decision. However that +may be, the two architects were told that Apollo wished that they +should spend the intervening time in “festive indulgence.” Thinking +from this, quite naturally, that they were in the good graces of the +god, and suspecting no ungodly duplicity, Agamedes and Trophonius set +about to enjoy themselves according to the most liberal interpretation +of their instructions. The result was that at the end of the seventh +day they were found dead in their beds, whether from too much festivity +on their part or too much duplicity on the part of the Oracle, no one +knows, but the inference is conclusive that as they were dead it was +not necessary to give them the professional compensation they had been +so anxiously demanding. + +Cicero tells the story a little differently, and eliminates the +question of compensation from it. He says that they consulted Apollo +to know what in his opinion was “best for man”? This being a much +easier question to handle, Apollo took but three days to answer it, but +the consequences of the consultation to poor Agamedes and Trophonius +were quite as disastrous. It may be that, taking everything into +consideration, it is best for man to be dead, but most architects don’t +think so, and had Agamedes and Trophonius anticipated such an answer, +it is probable that they would have asked no questions. + +Pausanias relates an altogether different legend and connects it with +the treasury of Hyrieus, which Agamedes and Trophonius built, instead +of with the temple of Apollo. The story by Pausanias would tend to show +that these architects were even more mercenary than Plutarch has given +us to understand they were. + +It seems that in constructing the treasury they contrived to have a +stone so placed that it could be taken away from the outside of the +building at any time, and thus offer an entrance to the vaults. No one +of course had any knowledge of this secret entrance but themselves. In +consequence, after the building was finished, and it was used for the +purpose for which it was intended, these two covetous brothers carried +away from time to time goodly portions of the treasure as it was +deposited. The king soon heard that there was a leak in his treasury, +and that he was losing money rapidly. He was naturally annoyed and much +perplexed when he found that the locks and seals of his treasure house +remained intact and uninjured. He thereupon set a trap to catch the +thief. Just what kind of a trap it was is not explained, but after some +little time Agamedes was caught, and Trophonius, finding his brother +ensnared, cut off his head, to save his own, doubtless, and prevent the +discovery of his association in the robbery. This very unfraternal act +of Trophonius was not allowed to go unpunished, however, and Apollo, or +some other god, caused him to be swallowed up in the grove of Lebadea. + +Pausanias further states that Erginus, the father of Agamedes, was +known as the “Protector of Labor,” that Trophonius was called the +“Nourisher,” and that Agamedes had the reputation of being the “Very +Prudent One.” There can be no doubt about Agamedes’s prudence, such as +it was. + +Trophonius, it appears, had a still further career after his death, as +an oracle, conducting his business from the spot where he was swallowed +up in Lebadea. He was especially prophetic in matters relating to +futurity. Those desiring to consult him were conducted to a cavern, +and furnished with a ladder, by means of which they could descend +into it. They were then given the information for which they were in +quest, either by means of their eyes, or their ears, or such of their +senses as the occasion seemed best to suggest. Some say that one of +these visitors, after having gone into the cave, and being treated in +this way by the oracle, returned never to smile again; but Pausanias +contradicts the story. + +There is another belief in regard to these architects which must be +simply alluded to. It is that Agamedes and Trophonius were deities of +the Pelasgian times; that Trophonius was a giver of food from the bosom +of the earth, and for that reason was worshipped in a cavern, and that +Agamedes was not the wretched thief of Pausanias, but, on the contrary, +a very generous character, who gave liberally from underground +granaries. + +A parallel to the story of the robbery of the treasury of Hyrieus by +Agamedes and Trophonius is told by Herodotus in respect to the two sons +of the builder of the treasury of the Egyptian king Rhampsinitus. These +two young men, it seems, were also caught, while pilfering, in a trap, +described with great circumstantiality by the “Father of History.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ORIGINATORS OF THE THREE ORDERS. + + +Who were the originators of the three great and primary orders of +Grecian architecture is still a question which the discussion of the +legendary and mythical architects, which has been briefly entered into, +has not answered. It may be assumed inferentially that as the earliest +of the Greek temples which have been referred to as the works of the +progeny of the gods were in the Doric style, the pagan deities of +Greece may claim some share of credit for having introduced that noble +design to the world. The Ionic and Corinthian styles, however, are +still to be accounted for, and as there is good ground to assume that +they made their advent into architectural art at much later dates no +celestial origin can be claimed for them. + +Vitruvius, in relating his account of the origin of all three orders, +alludes more directly to the birth of the Doric, and tells a story +so picturesque and entertaining of the other two that although +recognizing how well it may be known to the professional architect, it +is difficult to resist the temptation to give it here entire: + +“Dorus, the son of Hellen, and the nymph Orseis, reigned over the whole +of Achaia and Peloponnesus, and built at Argos, an ancient city, on a +spot sacred to Juno, a temple which happened to be of this order. After +this many temples similar to it sprung up in the other parts of Achaia, +though the proportions which should be preserved in it were not as yet +settled. + +“But afterward when the Athenians, by the advice of the Delphic Oracle +in a general assembly of the different states of Greece, sent over into +Asia thirteen colonies at once, and appointed a governor or leader +to each, reserving the chief command for Ion, the son of Xuthus and +Creusa, whom the Delphic Apollo had acknowledged as son, that person +led them over into Asia, and occupied the borders of Caria, and there +built the great cities of Ephesus, Miletus, Myus (which was long since +destroyed by inundation, and its sacred rites and suffrages transferred +by the Ionians to the inhabitants of Miletus), Priene, Samos, Teos, +Colophon, Chios, Erythræ, Phocæa, Clazomenæ, Lebedos and Melite. The +last, as a punishment for the arrogance of its citizens, was detached +from the other states in a war levied pursuant to the directions of +a general council; and in its place, as a mark of favor toward King +Attalus and Arsinoë, the city of Smyrna was admitted into the number +of Ionian states, which received the appellation of Ionian from their +leader Ion, after the Carians and Lelegæ had been driven out. + +“In this country, allotting different spots for sacred purposes, they +began to erect temples, the first of which was dedicated to Apollo +Panionios, and resembled that which they had seen in Achaia, and they +gave it the name of Doric, because they had first seen that species in +the cities of Doria. As they wished to erect this temple with columns, +and had not a knowledge of the proper proportions of them, nor knew the +way in which they ought to be constructed, so as at the same time to be +both fit to carry the superincumbent weight and to produce a beautiful +effect, they measured a man’s foot, and, finding its length the sixth +part of his height, they gave the column a similar proportion—that is, +they made its height, including the capital, six times the thickness +of the shaft, measured at the base. Thus the Doric order obtained its +proportion, its strength, and its beauty from the human figure. + +“Under similar notions they afterward built the temple of Diana, but +in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the female figure as +the standard; and for the purpose of producing a more lofty effect +they first made it eight times its thickness in height. Under it they +placed a base, after the manner of a shoe to the foot; they also added +volutes to its capital, like graceful, curling hair, on each side, and +the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoons in the place of +hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear a resemblance to the +folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders were invented, one of a +masculine character, without ornament, the other bearing a character +which resembled the delicacy, ornament and proportion of a female. + +“The successors of these people, improving in taste, and preferring a +more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters to the height of the +Doric column and eight and a half to the Ionic. That species, of which +the Ionians were the inventors, has received the appellation of Ionic. + +[Illustration: THE ORIGIN OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL.] + +“The third species, which is called Corinthian, resembles in its +character the graceful and elegant appearance of a virgin, in whom, +from her tender age, the limbs are of a more delicate form, and whose +ornaments should be unobtrusive. The invention of the capital of this +order is said to be founded on the following occurrence: A Corinthian +virgin, of a marriageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder. +After her interment her nurse, collecting in a basket those articles +to which she had shown a partiality when alive, carried them to her +tomb, and placed a tile on the basket for the longer preservation +of its contents. The basket was accidentally placed on the root of +an acanthus plant, which, pressed by the weight, shot forth, toward +spring, its stems and large foliage, and in the course of its growth +reached the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the +extremities. Callimachus, who for his great ingenuity and taste was +called by the Athenians Catetechnos, happening at this time to pass by +the tomb, observed the basket and the delicacy of the foliage which +surrounded it. Pleased with the form and novelty of the combination, he +constructed from the hint thus afforded columns of this species in the +country about Corinth.” + +The comments of Sir Henry Wotton in his “Elements of Architecture,” +written in England during the latter part of the sixteenth century, +upon this legendary account of the source of the three orders given +by Vitruvius, are sufficiently attractive and quaint in language and +spelling to warrant their being quoted also: + +“The Dorique order is the gravest that hath been received into civil +use, preserving in comparison of those that follow a more _masculine +aspect_ and little trimmer than the Tuscan that went before, save a +sober garnishment now and then of _lions’ heads_ in the _cornice_ and +of _triglyph_ and _metopes_ always in the _frize_.... To discern him +will be a piece rather of good _heraldry_ than of _architecture_, for +he is knowne by his place when he is in company and by the peculiar +ornament of his _frize_, before mentioned, when he is alone.... The +_Ionique order_ doth represent a kind of feminine slenderness; yet, +saith Vitruvius, not like a housewife, but in a decent dressing hath +much of the _matrone_.... Best known by his trimmings for the bodie +of this _columne_ is perpetually _chaneled_, like a thick-pleighted +gowne. The _capitall_, dressed on each side, not much unlike women’s +wires, in a spiral wreathing, which they call the _Ionian voluta_.... +The _Corinthian_ is a columne lasciviously decked like a courtezan, and +therefore in much participating (as all inventions do) of the place +where they were first born, Corinth having beene, without controversie, +one of the wantonest towns in the world.” + +As for the Composite order, which, as has been already stated, is but a +mixture of the Ionic and Corinthian, it would seem that Sir Henry has +very little patience. He says with a contempt which he makes little +effort to conceal: “The last is the _compounded order_, his _name_ +being a briefe of his _nature_: for his pillar is nothing in effect but +a _medlie_, or an _amasse_ of all the preceding _ornaments_, making +a new kinde of stealth, and though the most richly tricked, yet the +poorest in this, that he is a borrower of his beautie.” + +There are those who in relentless search for truth at the expense of +sentiment and poetry would spoil the pretty story which Vitruvius tells +of the invention of the Corinthian capital by claiming for Egypt the +distinction of being the mother-country of the order, and ascribing to +that form of the Egyptian capital that bells out toward the abacus, and +which is surrounded by open lotus leaves, as the archetype of the last +of the three Grecian orders. There is, however, more probability to the +story of Callimachus than there is similarity between the Egyptian and +Corinthian capitals, in our opinion. + +If we accept Callimachus as the originator of the Corinthian, although +there does not appear any name of an architect to receive the +individual credit for the invention of the Doric order, we may as well +accept the deduction which Vitruvius draws in respect to Hermogenes, +an Ionian architect, who is said to have flourished about 600 B.C., +and credit him at the same time with being the first to introduce +the feminine proportions and attributes into his art, and with having +perfected, if he did not originate, the queenly Ionic order. + +“When Hermogenes was employed to erect the temple of Bacchus at +Teos,” says Vitruvius, “the marble was prepared for one in the Doric +style; but the architect changed his mind, from the idea that other +proportions, afterward called Ionic, were more suitable for the +purpose, almost inducing the inference that Hermogenes was the inventor +of those delicate proportions; he appears unquestionably to have +displayed great skill and ingenuity in all his designs, and to have +entertained the opinion that sacred buildings should not be constructed +with Doric proportions, as they obliged the adoption of false and +incongruous arrangements.” + +Another fact which Vitruvius does not touch upon might tend to point +to Hermogenes as the originator of the Ionic order. He was a native of +Alabanda in Caria, and if it is true, as some authorities believe, the +volute was an ornament in early use in Asia Minor, he was doubtless +familiar with it; and, appreciating its graceful possibilities, +introduced it into the matronly Ionic. + +Hermogenes is conceded to have been one of the most celebrated +architects of antiquity. In addition to the temple of Bacchus which +he designed for Teos, one of the eastern Ionian cities, and the +birthplace of Anacreon, as well as other noted ancient characters, he +erected in the city of Magnesia, in Lydia, a temple to Diana in the +Doric order. About each of these temples he wrote a book, both of which +were still in existence in the time of Augustus. In one he described +the temple to Diana as a pseudodipteral, or false dipteral temple, a +form which he invented. It is called false or imperfect because of +the economy of the inside row of columns on each of the long sides of +the cell, the outside row being allowed to remain. The effect from a +distance was the same as a double row, while considerable expense was +saved. The temple to Bacchus he described as a monopterus, or a round +temple, having neither walls nor cell, but merely a roof sustained by +columns. + +Hermogenes’s great ambition appears to have been a desire to foster +and encourage the use of the Ionic order in preference to the Doric +for temple construction. In this opinion he was later sustained by +Tarchesius, another writer on architecture, who may be dated as +sometime later than 470 B.C., and by Pytheus, whom we shall meet again +as one of the architects of the tomb of Mausolus. + +Although Vitruvius mentions the origin of the Corinthian order in close +connection with that of the Doric and Ionic, it must be borne in mind +that Callimachus, whom he credits with the Corinthian, was a much +later artist than Hermogenes. The use of the Corinthian column by the +architect Scopas in the temple of Athene at Tegea in 396 B.C., has led +to the inference that Callimachus must have lived prior to that date, +and the fact that he gave to that style of architecture the appellation +of Corinthian, that he was a native of Corinth. Lübke, in his “Outlines +of the History of Art,” however, does not give to Callimachus the full +and undisputed credit for originating the Corinthian style, claiming +that the order existed before his time, although he does not mention +when or where. Lübke would interpret the story of Callimachus and the +basket as meaning that it was he who gave to the capital its final +perfection. It is somewhat strange also that although Callimachus is +conceded to have been the first to develop this order, if he did not +absolutely invent it, there is no mention of any building having been +designed by him in the Corinthian style. + +There seems to be little dispute over the fact that Callimachus was +neither as a sculptor nor an architect to be placed in the van of the +distinguished artists of early Greece. As a sculptor, in which capacity +he is best known by his works, his style was stilted and artificial, +rendered so by the artist’s disposition to be finicky and fastidious in +his execution. Indeed, he is said to have been unwearied in polishing +and perfecting, and to have sacrificed the grand and sublime in the +exercise of too great refinement and purity. Callimachus was never +satisfied with himself, and possibly on that account others were not +satisfied with him, as a certain degree of self-esteem is necessary +to invite public approval. The Greeks gave him a name, based upon his +peculiarities, which Pliny has translated as “_Calumniator Sui_.” His +faculty for invention was evidenced in other respects also, as he is +credited with having originated the art of boring marble, and Pausanius +describes a golden lamp which he invented, and which he dedicated to +Athene, which when filled with oil burned exactly a year without going +out. + +It may be said broadly of the Grecian people in their employment of +the three grand orders of architecture that the first two—namely, the +Doric and Ionic—more closely harmonized with the dignity and nobility +of their national character. In fact, Greece arrived at the pinnacle +of her civilization and brought her philosophy of human existence not +only in theory, but in practice, to its highest ideals before the +Corinthian order of architecture appeared to claim a share in her +artistic reputation. The stately solidity of the Doric and the graceful +purity of the Ionic lent the perfection of architectural framework to +the mental strength and loftiness of ideal of the Hellenic people. They +seemed to accord with the philosophy that was originally preached from +under the shadow of their pediments and entablatures. We can almost +see the doubting and mystified Theon stepping from the Doric portico +where Zeno held forth, to compare that philosopher’s stoical dogmas +with the doctrines of Prudence preached in the Ionic-encompassed garden +of Epicurus, by a philosopher ever destined to be misconstrued and +wrongfully interpreted. + +“All learning is useful,” taught Epicurus; “all the sciences are +curious; all the arts are beautiful; but more useful, more curious +and more beautiful is the perfect knowledge and perfect government +of ourselves. Though a man should read the heavens, unravel their +laws and their revolutions; though he should dive into the mysteries +of matter, and expound the phenomena of the earth and air; though he +should be conversant with all the writings and sayings and actions of +the dead; though he should hold the pencil of Parrhasius, the chisel +of Polycletus or the lyre of Pindar; though he should be one or all of +these things, yet not know the secret springs of his own mind, the +foundation of his opinions, the motives of his actions; if he hold +not the rein over his passions; if he have not cleared the mist of +all prejudice from his understanding; if he have not rubbed off all +intolerance from his judgments; if he know not to weigh his own actions +and the actions of others in the balance of justice, that man hath not +knowledge, nor, though he be a man of science, a man of learning or +an artist, he is not a sage. He must sit down patient at the feet of +Philosophy. With all his learning he hath yet to learn, and perhaps a +harder task, he hath to _un_learn.” + +The Corinthian order, on the other hand, notwithstanding all its +charm, beauty and variety, seemed to lack that steadfastness of +character which bound so firmly the other two orders to the hearts of +the Grecian people, and was never admitted into their fullest trust +and confidence. Indeed, it is generally conceded that the Corinthian +model grew in favor as the architectural art of Greece declined; and +only when Greece, losing her autonomy, began to lose her ambition and +intellectual greatness and independence. It reached its fullest vogue +with the later or Greco-Roman architects, who sacrificed much of purity +in art for lavish and sightly display. With the Greeks the Corinthian +was sparingly employed, and generally called upon for their smaller +and less important buildings; on the other hand, with the Romans, +enriched by additional features and ornamentation of their own, it +became the favorite order, not alone for portico and temple, but for +public and private buildings of every nature. + +[Illustration: Three columns] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EARLY GRECIAN ARCHITECTS. + + +In the year 548 B.C. the great temple to Apollo at Delphi, the work +of the legendary architects Agamedes and Trophonius, was destroyed by +fire. Of the four temples to the same deity that had been reared upon +the same site, this was the first in which marble was employed as a +building material. Naturally the question will present itself, how +could a temple built of marble be destroyed by fire? The answer is, +that while the main walls of the cell and the columns, entablatures, +pediments and other exposed parts of the early Greek temples were built +of marble, stone or sun-dried bricks, the roofs were generally of wood, +and were heavily timbered, sometimes calling for great strength to +support marble tiles. Much of the interior building material was also +of wood, as well as the statuary with which the earlier temples were +lavished and enriched. Thus if fire was started within the building, +either by accident or, as not infrequently happened, by the hand of an +incendiary, there was sufficient combustible material for it to feed +upon and to heat the entire structure, reducing the otherwise enduring +marble to crumbling lime. + +The temple of Apollo having been thus destroyed, the much revered +and highly respected Oracle was left without shelter and a place of +business. This state of things of course could not long be allowed to +continue, and the Amphictyons, a legislative body, having under its +special care the Delphic temple, at once came to the front and ordered +a new temple built at a cost of about $300,000. One-fourth of this sum +was to be paid by the Delphians and the remaining three-fourths were to +be contributed by the other cities of Greece and those nations which +were in the habit of consulting the Oracle—a very proper distribution +of the expense, considering how extensive and widespread was the renown +and appreciation of the priestess. Amasis, King of Egypt, volunteered +a thousand talents of alumina, thus showing what his feelings were in +the matter, and the Alcmæonidæ, one of the oldest and most aristocratic +families of Athens, undertook the contract, it is hinted, mainly for +political reasons. This may be true, as they were much involved in +local politics, especially with the banishment of Pisistratus, the +tyrant, and they may have seen an opportunity in the rebuilding of +this temple to make themselves very popular. They certainly went about +it in the right way to achieve such a result, and did actually gain +much influence by their generosity and the broadminded manner in which +they disregarded the strict terms of the contract to do handsomer and +better work than it called for. One particular illustration of their +liberality has attracted the attention of the historian: it was the +building of the temple in Parian marble, instead of Porine stone. While +the Alcmæonidæ were prosecuting the work in this generous spirit, they +did not neglect their fallen enemies, the Pisistratidæ, and threw out +occasional innuendoes to the effect that the Pisistratidæ could tell +more about the origin of the fire that destroyed the late temple than +they evidently cared to, thereby intimating a crime as against their +rivals that it might have been difficult to have proved. They even won +the Oracle to their side by similar simple and ingenuous methods, with +the result that ever afterward the Oracle did not hesitate to speak a +kind word for the Alcmæonidæ and favor their native city, Athens. + +The architect of this new temple was Spintharus, a Corinthian. As +nothing further seems to be known of him, we have been somewhat +particular to mention the importance of this work, to show that +Spintharus was an artist who stood very high in his profession at +the time. But as the temple was one of the longest in process of +construction, taking about seventy-two years to complete, it is not +likely that Spintharus lived to enjoy the full fruition of his work. + +It may be of interest to add that no structure of its kind throughout +all Greece was made the depository of richer or more extensive treasure +than this temple to Apollo at Delphi, a fact not to be marvelled at +if we do not lose sight of the Oracle. We have already seen how it +excited the cupidity of the brothers Agamedes and Trophonius. What they +appropriated to themselves from the rich vaults of its predecessor was, +however, comparatively insignificant to the wholesale robberies that +went on from time to time of the fifth temple designed by Spintharus. +Herodotus says that the wealth of Delphi was better known to the +Persian Xerxes than were the contents of his own palace, and that after +forcing the pass of Thermopylæ he detached a portion of his army to +capture Delphi. It failed to do so, only through the interposition +of the Oracle or some other deity. Many years afterward the Phocians +plundered the temple of what might be represented by $10,600,000 of our +money. Still later the Gauls also made a rich haul, which the Romans +afterward found in their city of Tolosa unexpended, probably because +there was so much of it; and Nero is said to have taken from it five +hundred bronze statues at one time. + +But these robberies fade into insignificance when the insult heaped +upon the Delphians and their Oracle by Constantine the Great is +recalled. This Roman vandal not only removed the sacred Tripod and +Brazen Column which supported it, but degenerated their use to the +adornment of the hippodrome of the new city he built on the Bosphorus. +The Brazen Column may still be seen in Constantinople, but the sacred +Tripod has disappeared forever. There is a little story connected with +a first disappearance of the Tripod that may be worth the telling. It +was lost at sea, but afterward recovered by some fishermen. When Pythia +was asked to decide to whom it should be given, her answer was that it +should be bestowed upon the wisest man in Greece. Accordingly it was +sent to Thales of Miletos. He, however, was too modest to retain it, +and passed it over to Bias as a wiser man; Bias was also embarrassed +by the selection, and presented it to another of the Grecian sages; he +to still another, and so on, until it had made the circuit of pretty +much every person in Greece with any claim at all to superior wisdom. +Finally, however, it came back once more to Thales, who successfully +ended its itinerary by dedicating it to the Delphic Apollo. + +One of the earliest of the great temples to be erected in the Ionic +order was that begun in the Ionian city of Ephesus in Asiatic Greece +by Ctesiphon, a Cretan architect born in Cnossus, and his son, +Metagenes. This temple was erected to the glory of the many-breasted +and mummy-like appearing Artemis, a goddess peculiar to the Ephesians, +whom the Greek colonists there doubtless inherited from the Asiatic +races that preceded them in their Ionian settlement. There was nothing +of the graceful, virgin-like characteristics of Apollo’s sister, the +Arcadian Artemis, in this Ephesian goddess, but the Ionian Greeks were +quite partial to her, attended her with eunuch priests, and built in +her honor this temple, so grand and magnificent that it was regarded as +one of the seven wonders of the world. + +Before alluding to some of the interesting facts that have been +preserved concerning the early history of this great temple it may +not be out of place to touch upon a custom which prevailed in Ephesus +in respect to the employment of architects, which Vitruvius relates. +He says: “In the magnificent and spacious Grecian city of Ephesus an +ancient law was made by the ancestors of the inhabitants, hard in its +nature, but nevertheless equitable. When an architect was entrusted +with the execution of a public work, an estimate thereof being lodged +in the hands of a magistrate, his property was held as security until +the work was finished. If, when finished, the expense did not exceed +the estimate, he was complimented with decrees and honors. So when +the excess did not amount to more than a fourth part of the original +estimate, it was defrayed by the public, and no punishment was +inflicted. But when more than one-fourth the estimate was exceeded, he +was required to pay the excess out of his own pocket.” + +The honest Vitruvius almost sighs as he adds: “Would to God that such +a law existed among the Roman people, not only in respect to their +public, but also of their private buildings, for then the unskilful +could not commit their depredations with impunity, and those who were +most skilful in the intricacies of the art would follow the profession! +Proprietors would not be led into an extravagant expenditure, so as +to cause ruin; architects themselves, from the dread of punishment, +would be more careful in their calculations, and the proprietor would +complete his building for that sum or a little more, which he could +afford to expend. Those who can conveniently expend a given sum on +any work with the pleasing expectation of seeing it completed would +cheerfully add one-fourth more; but when they find themselves burdened +with the addition of half or even more than half of the expense +originally contemplated, losing their spirits and sacrificing what has +already been laid out, they incline to desist from its completion.” + +There are, perhaps, some people even at the present time who can be +found to echo these sentiments of Vitruvius, and exclaim: Would to God +that such a law existed among the American people, especially in New +York and Chicago! + +Theodorus of Samos, it will be remembered, laid the foundation of the +temple to Artemis of Ephesus in the year 600 B.C. To guard against the +destruction of the temple by earthquakes, a marshy site was chosen, +and Theodorus insured a firm foundation, by using charcoal, which was +rammed down solidly, and then covered with fleeces of wool. Ctesiphon +and his son did not, however, begin the superstructure until about +forty years later. + +The dimensions of the building were very extensive, and although +the architecture was full of grandeur, grace and beauty were not +sacrificed. The length was four hundred and twenty-five feet; the +width two hundred and twenty feet. One hundred and twenty-seven +Parian marble columns, each sixty feet in height, surrounded the cell +in double rows, sixteen appearing in the front and rear façades, and +forty each on the sides. Herodotus states that most of these columns +were presented by the rich Crœsus, and some by other kings. The cell, +according to some authorities, was devoid of a roof, but Mr. Wood, +in his “Discoveries at Ephesus,” indicates otherwise. The whole +edifice, both exteriorly and interiorly, presented great richness and +elaboration of carving. The shafts of the columns in front of the +building were carved in relief, in three broad bands, to nearly half +their height, and those in the rear, in one band, to about one-quarter +of their height. The frieze and pediments were also worked out by the +chisel of the sculptor in designs of great and imposing beauty. + +Many of the stones used in the building were very massive. An idea +of how huge some of these blocks were may be gathered from the fact +that the architrave alone contained pieces of marble thirty feet +long, and that Ctesiphon and Metagenes were forced to invent special +machinery and contrivances to convey the stones for the columns to the +building from the quarry eight miles distant. Vitruvius explains these +contrivances as follows: “He [Ctesiphon] made a frame of four pieces +of timber, two of which were equal in length to the shafts of the +columns, and were held together by the two transverse pieces. In each +end of the shaft he inserted iron pivots, whose ends were dovetailed +thereinto, and run with lead. The pivots worked in gudgeons fastened +to the timber frame, whereto were attached oaken shafts. The pivots +having a free revolution in the gudgeons, when the oxen were attached +and drew the frame, the shafts rolled round, and might have been +conveyed to any distance. The shafts having been thus transported, the +entablatures were to be removed, when Metagenes, the son of Ctesiphon, +applied the principle upon which the shafts had been conveyed to +the removal of those also. He constructed wheels about twelve feet +in diameter, and fixed the ends of the blocks of stone whereof the +entablature was composed into them; pivots and gudgeons were then +prepared to receive them in the manner just described, so that when the +oxen drew the machine the pivots, turning in the gudgeons, caused the +wheels to revolve, and thus the blocks, being enclosed like axles in +the wheels, were brought to the work without delay. An example of this +species of machine may be seen in the rolling stone used for smoothing +the walks in palæstræ. But the method would not have been practicable +for any considerable distance. From the quarries to the temple is a +length of not more than eight thousand feet, and the interval is a +plain without any declivity. Within our own time, when the base of the +colossal statue of Apollo in the temple of that god was decayed through +age, to prevent the fall and destruction of it, a contract for a base +from the same quarry was made with Pæonius. It was twelve feet long, +eight feet wide, and six feet high. Pæonius, driven to an expedient, +did not use the same as Metagenes did, but constructed a machine for +the purpose by a different application of the same principle. He made +two wheels about fifteen feet in diameter, and fitted the ends of the +stone into these wheels. To connect the two wheels he framed into them, +round their circumference, small pieces of two inches square, not more +than one foot apart, each extending from one wheel to the other, and +thus enclosing the stone. Round these bars a rope was coiled, to which +the traces of the oxen were made fast, and as it was drawn out the +stone rolled by means of the wheels; but the machine, by its constant +swerving from a direct, straightforward path, stood in need of constant +rectification, so that Pæonius was at last without money for the +completion of his contract.” The uninitiated who have speculated as +to how the ancients succeeded in moving and transporting considerable +distances such huge blocks of stone, without the assistance of our +modern machinery and contrivances, are given in this quotation from +Vitruvius some hint as to the ingenuity and inventive ability of the +early architects and builders. + +The temple, however, was slow in building, and Ctesiphon and Metagenes, +after writing a book on their great architectural work, passed away in +due course of time. Their places were filled by other architects, of +whom there is no record, but Demetrius, a priest of Diana, together +with Daphnis and Peonius, Ephesian architects, finally completed +the work some two hundred and twenty years after it was begun by +Ctesiphon and his son. In the course of that long interval, Scopas, an +architectural sculptor of Paros, of whom there will be more to relate +as we go on, contributed one column, which was regarded as so beautiful +that it was accepted as a model for those that followed. + +Together with its architectural glories, the interior was made a +depository for many of the finest works of the great artists of +antiquity, and Scopas is said to have introduced Caryatides here. This +is doubted, but he certainly furnished a very grand statue of Hecate; +and Praxiteles, with his almost equally gifted son, adorned the shrine. + +Tradition relates that upon the very night that the great Alexander was +born, the Ephesian temple was destroyed by fire, through the rapacious +greed for notoriety of one Herostratus. This antique fire-bug, when +put to the torture for his crime, confessed that his only object was +to gain immortality for his name, an ambition which he succeeded in +accomplishing through the stupidity of the states-general of Asiatic +Greece. They decreed that the name of Herostratus should never be +mentioned, and of course it always was, as all the contemporary +historians felt impelled to record the fact that a man by the name of +Herostratus was not to be mentioned, and to give the reasons therefor, +and much more about Herostratus which, had there been no decree, might +have been left unsaid. The result was and has been that a crank of +antiquity has lived by name for twenty-five hundred years, and is quite +likely to live for as many more. + +When Alexander the Great reached maturity, doubtless feeling the +depression consequent upon having his advent into the world which +he was destined to dominate, associated with the destruction of so +magnificent a temple to the Asiatic Diana, offered, it is said, to pay +the cost of its restoration, provided—there is frequently a proviso +coupled with these liberal offers—provided his name should be inscribed +on the new edifice. While the Ephesians were made glad by the offer, +they did not readily fall in with the proviso. The cleverness of +their diplomatic reply, however, appealed to the susceptible side of +Alexander’s human nature, and effected a compromise. They told the +Macedonian that “it was not right for a god to make offerings to gods.” + +The architect for the new temple was the great favorite of Alexander +and his fellow-countryman, Dinocrates, who it is said rebuilt the +edifice on even a more extravagant scale than was the first. Much of +the marble and sculpturing of the old temple entered into the new, +and the painters, statuaries and sculptors of the time again lavished +upon it their best art. The walls were embellished from time to time +by Parrhasius and Apelles; and Timarete, the first female artist of +note of whom there is any record, contributed a picture of the honored +Artemis. It is related that the folding doors or gates of this new +temple were made of cypress that had been allowed to season for four +generations, and that when the pieces of cypress wood were glued +together the glue was allowed to remain for four years to harden. +Mutianus, a Roman architect, states that when he found them, which was +four hundred years afterward, they were as fresh and beautiful as when +new. + +Some remains of the splendor of this pagan temple are still doing +architectural duty. The great dome of the beautiful Byzantine church +of Santa Sophia in Constantinople, now a Turkish mosque, is supported +by columns of green jasper, brought from the Ephesian temple by the +Roman Emperor Justinian, and two of the pillars in the cathedral at +Pisa are also from the same source. + +There is some confusion as to the works of art and decorations +associated respectively with the two temples just described which +it would be vain to attempt to clear up, believing that it matters +but little, inasmuch as it is not likely that Herostratus could have +destroyed completely the first temple, and that the services of +Dinocrates were engaged more in the line of making good the damage +done than in erecting an entirely new edifice. The upper colonnades of +Corinthian columns, however, which Mr. Wood shows as appearing in the +interior of the temple, are clearly the work of Dinocrates. + +Demetrius, the priest of Diana, and his associates, Peonius and +Daphnis, the three architects who completed the first Artemesian +temple, having flourished over two hundred years after the foundation +of that structure was laid, are not, of course, to be classed among the +earlier of the Grecian architects, and, properly, should not be treated +under this heading; but as they are all grouped together in the +erection of another great Asiatic-Greek temple, and are not further met +with, it may be just as well to add what there is in respect to them at +this time. + +The temple referred to was that dedicated to Apollo in the Ionian city +of Miletus, not far distant from the scene of the joint labors of +these architects at Ephesus. Its order was also Ionic, and although +not as large as that to Artemis, it could have been very little, if +any, inferior to it in columnar effect and general impressive beauty, +if not grandeur. It was three hundred and two feet in length by one +hundred and sixty-four feet in width, and, like the temple at Ephesus, +was surrounded by double rows of columns, each column, however, being +sixty-three feet in height. Indeed, Strabo, the celebrated Roman +traveller and geographer, who visited the ruins of the temple during +the first century before the Christian era, testifies that “it is the +greatest of all temples,” and adds that it remained without a roof +“in consequence of its bigness”; but this allusion to its roofless +condition is probably due to the fact that the building was never +wholly completed. Pausanias also gives it high praise, and speaks of +it as one of the wonders of Ionia, and Vitruvius numbers it “as one of +the four temples which had raised their architects to the summit of +renown”[2]—a renown, it would seem, that has been very much begrudged +them, as the literature of their time furnishes practically no data in +regard to them personally, and what estimate can be formed of them is +wholly based upon the importance of their works. + +Peonius, we are told, was an Ephesian, but as to even the nativity +of the other two architects we are in the dark, although Daphnis is +supposed to have been a Miletian. There is also some little uncertainty +as to the exact date when they exercised their profession, but it is +probably safe to say that it was sometime within the first half of the +fourth century before Christ. + +Two columns of the great temple to Apollo have stood proudly against +the attacks of time, and although scarred by their long battles, are +yet evidencing the glories of a structure of which they were once but +an insignificant part. + +In the year 555 B.C. there lived four architects, to whose skill was +entrusted the building of a temple that should be in all respects +worthy to stand for the respect due the dignity, power and extreme +longevity of the great Olympian Zeus—the king-god of the Greeks. + +The foundation for this shrine was laid in the time of Pisistratus, +a tyrant of Athens, who contributed several architectural works to +that city, but whose several banishments greatly interrupted their +building. This was particularly the case with the great temple to Zeus. +However, it was sufficiently advanced for Pisistratus to dedicate +it before he fell from power. It has been stated that it was due to +the genuine dislike which the Athenians felt for Pisistratus and his +sons, who succeeded him, that four hundred years were allowed to flow +by before the temple was finished. This is hardly just to a ruler of +great loyalty to his native city, and of unquestioned integrity in the +discharge of his public duties. It is more probable that the delay +was due to the animosity of the rival Athenian family of Alcmæonidæ, +who, piqued by jealousy, fanned a flame of opposition to the works of +Pisistratus that continued for several centuries. + +Antistates, Antimachides, Calleschros and Porinus were the four +architects engaged by Pisistratus, who, like their professional +brothers employed on the temples of Diana, Apollo and Ceres, were, +according to Vitruvius, entitled to immortality for the grandeur of +their works, but about whom there is no other information to be given. + +This temple to Jupiter was not built upon the Acropolis at Athens, like +that to the patron goddess of the city, Minerva, but upon a raised +peribolos within the city below, and on the site of an earlier temple +to the same god, erected in the time of Deucalion, but which had +perished from the ravages of ages. + +It was like most of the early Doric temples, of peripteral +construction, or surrounded by columns on all four sides. Aristotle, +who saw it before it was finished, was so much impressed by its size +that he compared it to the Pyramids; and one of his scholars remarked +that “though unfinished, it called forth astonishment, and when +finished would be unexcelled.” + +Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria (176-164 +B.C.) finally finished the cell and placed the Corinthian columns of +the portico, employing for the purpose a Roman architect of great skill +by the name of Cossutius. It was then, probably, that Livy made the +remark “that among so many temples this is the only one worthy of a +god.” + +Sylla, however, when he laid siege to Athens, some forty years later, +robbed the temple most unmercifully, carrying away with him many +of the columns to Rome. But his work of destruction was more than +compensated for by his successor, Hadrian, two hundred years still +later, under the immediate direction of the celebrated Roman architect, +Luigi Cannia. Hadrian, in his love of great architectural effects, was +inspired to beautify the peribolos with a peristyle one hundred rods +in length, and his architect contributed a new section to the temple +itself, and added three grand vestibules. + +The sacred enclosure, after Hadrian had finished it, which had a +circumference of about twenty-three hundred feet, was ornamented by +statues, contributed in great numbers by different cities. The length +of the temple at this time, according to Stuart, was, upon the upper +step, three hundred and fifty-four feet, and its breadth one hundred +and seventy-one feet. The columns, which surrounded the cell, now all +Corinthian, numbered one hundred and twenty-four, all of Pentelican +marble, of which there are sixteen still standing. In the pronaos, or +inner portico, Hadrian caused to be placed four statues of himself, two +in Thracian and two in Egyptian marble, which were, perhaps, three more +than a moderately modest man might have felt necessary. + +Another gorgeous temple to the great Jupiter was begun about five +years later than that at Athens by the architect Libon, an Eleian, in +Olympia, which Lysias speaks of as “the fairest spot in Greece.” In +Olympia the spiritual and physical natures of the Grecian people may +be said to have combined in the perfection of development. Here the +glories of the body, the capabilities of the finest muscular strength +and athletic action, were exhibited in gymnasium and stadion, and here +the religious spirit of the people arose to the fullest intensity, and +as though doubly inspired by the action and strength of the perfect +body, found expression in temple and sanctuary. + +So great was the reward, so enthusiastic the reception accorded the +champions in the athletic games of Olympia, that they call forth a +protest from the sensitive Vitruvius, who seems to feel that the honors +conferred upon them should have been reserved for the literary lights +of the time. “The ancestors of the Greeks,” he complains, “held the +celebrated wrestlers who were victors in the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian +and Nemean games in such esteem that, decorated with the palm and +crown, they were not only publicly thanked, but were also, in their +triumphant return to their respective homes, borne to their cities and +countries in four-horse chariots, and were allowed pensions for life +from the public revenue. When I consider these circumstances, I cannot +help thinking it strange that similar honors, or even greater, are +not decreed to those authors who are of lasting service to mankind. +Such certainly ought to be the case; for the wrestler, by training, +merely hardens his own body for the conflict; a writer, however, not +only cultivates his own mind, but affords every one else the same +opportunity, by laying down precepts for acquiring knowledge and +exciting the talents of his reader.” + +So attractive was this spot on the banks of the Alpheus in Ellis, in +natural charm, as well as in the purposes for which it was visited, +that it is here, as nowhere else in Greece, with the possible exception +of the Acropolis at Athens, the Grecian architects lavished their +best skill and best illustrated their appreciation of the fact, +that the effect of fine buildings is greatly augmented by grouping +them gracefully together in one place, producing, as it were, an +architectural picture. “Many objects,” says Pausanias, “may a man see +in Greece, and many things may he hear that are worthy of admiration, +but above them all the doings at Eleusis and the sights at Olympia have +somewhat in them of a soul divine.” + +The worship of Zeus was an old worship in Olympia, so that when Libon +was entrusted with authority to erect a new temple to that deity, out +of the spoils taken in subjugating the Pisans and other neighboring +cities which had revolted from the Eleans, he gave free reign to his +art, and produced a Doric temple which rivalled that in Athens, though +not as large. + +Pausanias informs us that the Olympian temple was two hundred and +thirty feet long, ninety-five feet wide and sixty-eight feet high; +that it was surrounded by marble columns and covered with marble cut +in the form of tiles. The front and rear pediments were adorned with +sculpture, as well as the metopes of the frieze. The interior was of +two orders of columns supporting lofty galleries, through which there +was a passage to the throne of Jove “glittering with gold and gems.” + +It was this temple of Libon’s that became, soon after its completion, +the casket which held the _chef d’œuvre_ of Phidias, the colossal +statue of Jupiter carved in ivory and gold, of which Quintilian +observes that it added a new religious feeling to Greece. The story is +well known how Phidias, being asked by his nephew Panænus, a painter, +who assisted him in the decoration of the temple, how he could have +conceived that air of divinity which he had expressed in the face +of this noble statue, replied that he had copied it from Homer’s +description of the god. Jupiter was presented naked to his waist, +but draped from his girdle down. The significance of this was that +the great Jove, knowing himself to be of heavenly origin, thought it +best to conceal himself in part only from man. He was also given a +beard for the reason that the Greeks, clinging to the Oriental notion, +believed that beards carried with them an air of majesty; an idea, by +the way, which was not shared in by the Romans, who spoke with derision +of their bearded forefathers, and permitted the wearing of beards +only to those who were in disgrace, and to poor philosophers, who +probably, like our poor modern poets, found a visit to the barber’s an +unnecessary and expensive luxury. + +Rome during these early times, and before she had awakened to the +cultivation of the arts at home, was prone to borrow from Greece the +talent of which she was in need. It was about this time that we find +the first record of such a call made by Rome upon her eastern neighbor +for architects. The demand was answered by the two architectural +sculptors Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were imported by the Dictator +Posthumius to erect two temples in Rome, one to Castor and Pollux +or, as some authorities assert, to Liber and Libera (Bacchus and +Proserpine), which stood near the Forum and Temple of Vesta, and the +other to Ceres, on the slope of the Aventine hill, near the Circus. +These temples were vowed by Posthumius, in his battle with the Latins, +496 B.C., and were dedicated by Viscellinus some years later. + +Before closing this chapter, in which the attempt is made to gather +together some of the earlier architects of Greece, it may be as well to +include within it a number of such artists who though not rising to the +highest fame, or who were not connected with the most elegant buildings +of their time, nevertheless had the good fortune to have their names +preserved in history. + +Pliny tells a rather amusing and interesting account of such an +architect by the name of Bupalus, who probably flourished about the +year 524 B.C. He is said to have come from a very old family of +artists who exercised the art of the statuary from the beginning of +the Olympiads; but as Pliny simply speaks of him as an architect and +artist, but does not mention any building attributed to his skill, he +becomes a subject for notice only in connection with the Iambic poet +Hipponax, whom he used his art to torment. Pliny relates that Bupalus +and his brother Athenis amused themselves by making caricatures of the +satirical poet. Hipponax was undersized, thin and ugly, and probably, +like the modern poet Pope, suffered his physical defects to give him +a cynical view of life. The caricatures of the playful Bupalus and +Athenis naturally affected unpleasantly his _amour propre_, and he +employed the weapon at his command, his ironical pen, to strike back at +his tormentors, with the result that he gave them a good pen lashing +in a satirical poem, in which he also chastised his Ionian brethren for +what he considered their effeminate luxury. In the same poem, also, +he did not spare his own parents, and it is said that he even had the +temerity to ridicule the gods. + +There is, of course, always some one to start the story that a woman is +at the source of all the infirmities that any particularly conspicuous +man suffers from, and there are those who claim that Bupalus did not +originate the trouble, but that it started through the fact that the +architect had a very beautiful daughter of whom Hipponax was greatly +enamored. Like the earlier Iambic poet Archilochus, who got into a +similar scrape, the girl’s father refused to permit his daughter to +marry a poor little withered poet, with the result that the poet’s life +was ever after embittered. How very bitter Hipponax became, especially +against the ladies, is illustrated by a remark which is attributed +to him: “There are,” he said, “only two happy days in the life of a +married man—that in which he receives his wife, and that in which he +carries out her corpse.” + +After his death Leonidas of Tarentum, in an elegant epigram, warned +travellers not to pass too near his tomb, lest they rouse the sleeping +wasp. The grave of Hipponax, by the way, instead of being covered with +ivy and roses, like that of a mild poet, was planted with thorns and +thistles. + +Pausanias mentions several of these more obscure architects. Agnaptus +was one, who built a porch in the Altis, or wall at Olympia, called +afterward by the Eleans the “porch of Agnaptus,” and Antiphilus, +Pothæus and Megacles were three other waifs on our sea of oblivion. +They were responsible for the Treasury of the Carthaginians also +at Olympia. Pyrrhus, with his two sons, Lacrates and Hermon, built +the Olympian Treasury of the Epidamnians. There were ten of these +Treasuries, by the way, raised by different states, which were not only +architecturally very beautiful, but which contained statues and other +offerings of great value. + +Strabo mentions an architect and sculptor by the name of Hermocreon, +who designed a gigantic and beautiful altar at Parium on the Propontis +in Asia Minor; and Eurycles, a Spartan architect, who built the baths +at Corinth, and “adorned them with beautiful marbles,” must not be +overlooked, although he may have been of a much later date. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The other three temples which Vitruvius praised thus highly were +those to Diana at Ephesus, Jupiter Olympus at Athens, and Ceres at +Eleusis. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ARCHITECTURAL EPOCH OF PERICLES. + + +The age of Pericles was so distinctively an era in the advancement of +the arts, especially architecture, not alone in the city where Athene +shed her divine intelligence and tutelary influence with generous +favor, but throughout all the Hellenic states, and has left so many +models and criterions for the architects of all time to follow, that a +few words in reference to Pericles himself and the sculptor Phidias, +into whose hands he entrusted the direction of his public buildings +and the adornment of Athens, may be admissible, before we consider +the architectural geniuses who sprung forward to meet the great +requirements of the time. + +Pericles was a descendant of that noble and refined, if sometimes +unfortunate, house of Alcmæonidæ, which did so much for the Delphic +temple of Apollo, and a son of Xanthippus, the victor of Mycale, +and Agariste, niece of Cleisthenes, founder of the later Athenian +constitution. The date of his birth is not known, but that he early +evinced a leaning toward the fine arts and philosophy is recorded. +Under Pythocleides he studied music, under Damon political science, +under Zeno philosophy; but it remained for the erudite Anaxagoras to +give the final burnish to his character and thought. He was therefore, +both by birth and disposition, as well as cultivation, possessed of +a mind singularly comprehensive in its grasp of the advantages which +the arts of peace could contribute to the progress of his people, and +naturally turned his attention to their exploitation and development, +when he became dominant in the year 444 B.C. His rule of peace lasted +but thirteen years, or until the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, +but was crowded with numerous artistic and architectural triumphs. + +That he may have gone a step too far in the encouragement of pleasure +and the peaceful virtues among a people of warlike antecedents and a +future before them of foreordained defence and conquest, if not final +defeat, may be a subject for speculation; but that he gave an impetus +to literature and art, and by the fervent warmth of his patronage +fostered the growth of genius in a way that had not been equalled +before his time, and which has never been excelled since, is the +principal reason, doubtless, for his immortality. + +His head was abnormally long, a defect which the artists of his +time invariably corrected with a helmet when painting or sculpturing +his portrait, and the contemporaneous comic poets and satirists as +continually ridiculed in verse and jest. Speaking of his eloquence +and powers of persuasion, Thucydides relates a pleasant story in +respect to his dexterity in this regard. When Archidamus, king of the +Lacedæmonians, asked Thucydides whether he or Pericles was the better +wrestler, he replied: “When I have thrown him and given him a fair +fall, he, by persisting that he had no fall, gets the better of me, and +makes the bystanders, in spite of their own eyes, believe him.” But in +other respects his physique was well proportioned and his bearing noble +and commanding. His manner was dignified and reserved, his eloquence +strong, fearless and convincing, and his general appearance such as to +inspire the people to compliment him with the name “Olympian Zeus,” +a character in which his portrait was also painted by his favorite, +Phidias. + +An English writer well says that the age of Pericles was “the milky +way of great men,” for it was certainly clouded to whiteness with +intellectual stars. The names associated with this era are not only +among the most celebrated in all Grecian history, but among the most +renowned that have sprung forward in the history of all the world. +Poets, philosophers, dramatists, musicians, sculptors, painters, +architects, not only arose in great numbers under his fostering +encouragement, but to the highest eminence in their respective +avocations. In fact, it seems as though the human plant that had +long been growing, strengthening and broadening upon Hellenic soil +had suddenly sprung into the fullest flower and enveloped itself in +intellectual beauty. + +The Athens which we so frequently see pictured in all her restored +architectural grace and grandeur, the Athens which from her Acropolis +of chiselled white so proudly surveys the Ægean sea and surrounding +plains, is the Athens of Pericles, noblest of all cities in the +pursuits of virtue, of beauty and contentment, and in the pure +realization of that happiness which the practice of the arts alone can +afford. + +The budding of Athenian architectural magnificence may be said to have +begun under Themistocles and Cimon, the immediate predecessors of +Pericles, but not to have ripened and flowered in its perfection until +his advent into power. Then it was that the task of building a city in +every way worthy of the people who had proved their prowess before the +Persian hosts in war, and who in peace could delight in the musical +poems of Homer, was pushed to a speedy realization with enthusiasm. + +Nothing in all the biography of Pericles has contributed so greatly +to the perpetuity of his fame as this attention which he gave to the +development of the architectural magnificence of Athens. “That which +gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of Athens,” says Plutarch, +“and the greatest admiration and even astonishment to all strangers, +and that which now is Greece’s only evidence that the power she +boasts of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle story, was +his construction of the public and sacred buildings. The materials +were stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony and cypress-wood; the artisans +that wrought and fashioned them were smiths and carpenters, moulders, +founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, +painters, embroiderers, turners; those again that conveyed them to +the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship-masters by sea; +and by land, cartwrights, cattle breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, +flax-workers, shoemakers and leather-dressers, road-makers, miners. +And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his +particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of +journeymen and laborers belonging to it banded together as in array, +to be, as it were, the instrument and body for the performance of the +service. Thus, to say all in a word, the occasions and services of +these public works distributed plenty through every age and condition.” + +“Architecture,” says Robert Adam, “in a particular manner depends upon +the patronage of the great, as they alone are able to execute what +the architect plans.” This being so, the architects of his time had +in Pericles a patron in every way worthy their best efforts. Indeed, +so ambitious was he to grace the city of his nativity with all the +beauties of architecture that his enemies found here a pretext for +censure, and complained that he spent too much of the public treasure +for such a purpose. He met the criticism, however, with the argument +that those who pursued the arts of war should not be the only ones +to receive support at the expense of the state, but that those who +possessed the skill and industry of true artists and artisans were +quite as much entitled to public encouragement and support as the +soldier. + +This answer for a time appeased the clamor of the opposition, which +had been set up against what they would lead the people to believe was +extravagance and wastefulness on the part of Pericles. But it soon +broke out again. When finally it became no longer bearable, Pericles +addressed his accusers and said: “If you think that I have expended +too much let the money be charged to my account, not yours, _only let +the new edifices be inscribed with my name and not that of the people +of Athens_.” It is to the credit of the Athenians that their pride was +touched by the words of their ruler and their cupidity restrained. +They at once replied that Pericles might spend as much of their money +as he pleased, and they even went further, and insisted that he should +not spare the public treasury in the least. Like all great men, +Pericles was assailed in a variety of ways. When his enemies did not +accomplish their purpose in bringing him to public disgrace by one +method of assault, they tried another. We have seen how they failed in +one instance; another was similar in accusing him, in complicity with +Phidias, of appropriating to his own use the public treasure, donated +to pay for the golden plates on the chryselephantine statues of the +latter’s creation. But this charge also not proving successful, they +attacked his religious character, strange as it may appear, when it is +remembered how deeply he was interested in erecting temples of pagan +worship. But he survived the slanders of his time and continued his +aims and purposes in life, content, doubtless, that posterity should +judge him aright, as did the majority of the people of his own time. +His last words are perhaps the best epitome of his life’s work: “No +Athenian ever put on black through me.” + +Teleclides has put into verse the great surrender which the Athenian +people appeared finally to make to Pericles of their rights in peace +and war: + + “The tribute of the cities, and, with them, the cities too, + To do with them as he pleases, and undo; + To build up, if he likes, stone walls around a town; + And, again, if so he likes, to pull them down; + Their treaties and alliances, power, empire, peace and war, + Their wealth and their success forevermore.” + +As already stated, in no branch of the arts did the age of Pericles +make a deeper and more lasting impression than in that of architecture. +Although the Doric order was employed many hundred years before his +time, and the Ionic scarcely less many, yet the finest types of each +and the examples of these orders which stand for their most perfect and +artistic development are to be found in the Acropolis at Athens in the +time of Pericles, the Parthenon serving as the criterion of one and the +Erechtheum as the model of the other. That these orders should have +been brought to such perfection and endowed with their crowning dignity +and grace, must alone prove without further argument, if need be, that +the architectural talent and artistic sense of the age was incomparable. + +The part which the great sculptor Phidias played in the art drama of +his time has been already alluded to, but not sufficiently, perhaps, to +exclude a further reference to him. + +The comparison has often been made between Phidias and the talented +revivalist of the fifteenth century, Michael Angelo, and a casual +consideration of the two eminent artists would indicate that it was a +proper one. They were both sculptors, both painters, both engravers +(Phidias of gems), but they were not both architects, as is erroneously +assumed. As to the respective degrees of talent which each manifested +toward the branches of art which he professed, they also differed +widely. In sculpture the school of Michael Angelo will not outlive that +of Phidias, but in painting, especially in its application to mural +decoration, the Greek must bow to the Italian. In architecture also +Phidias possessed none of the technical knowledge and skill which in +Michael Angelo enabled him to suspend the great dome of St. Peter’s +“as if in the air,” and which was so important a factor in his long +artistic career, manifested in other ways as well, and gaining for him +perpetual applause. However, the two artists may be well compared, +inasmuch that they both created epochs of their own; and both excelled +in exhibiting a noble understanding as to the high and exalted +possibilities of art that has never been equalled. + +Phidias’s comprehensive grasp of broad artistic effects had as much +to do, probably, with gaining for him the favor of Pericles as his +technical skill. Quintilian calls him the “Sculptor of the gods.” +He realized the greatness of large things and could calculate their +power in influencing the imagination and understanding. He was once +invited, together with his contemporary artist, Alcamenes, to design a +statue of Minerva, destined to be placed upon a high column. When both +statues were finished and exhibited, that made by Alcamenes was at once +preferred on account of its elegance of finish, while that by Phidias +was rejected as being rough and crude. Phidias, however, insisted +that each should be shown from the high pinnacle upon which it might +ultimately be placed. When this was done all the elegant graces of +the statue of Alcamenes were lost to sight, as well also the apparent +roughness of that by Phidias, which now took on the perfect proportions +he had foreseen. This story will serve to illustrate the breadth of his +artistic discernment. + +Of all the artists of his time, Phidias was by far the best gifted to +have placed in his hands, by Pericles, the supervision of the public +buildings of Athens, and to have entrusted to his discretion and +judgment the planning, posing and arranging of the grand architectural +_mise en scène_, which his patron had determined should be set there. +If Phidias did not draw the actual plans of a building or other +structure, his judgment could indicate its order, its location and such +other characteristics it should possess to harmonize with the features +with which it was to be associated. He could group the majestic masonry +of his time in grand display, could beautify it with his own chisel, +and could form and mould the complete architectural picture. If he was +not the architect of the Parthenon, he at least enhanced its effect +with the magnificence of his sculpturings and designs in the metopes +of the frieze and the tympanums of the pediments, some of which are +still to be seen among the “Elgin marbles” in the British Museum, +of which Canova remarked they would alone compensate for a visit to +England. It is not improbable, also, that he may have suggested the +Caryatides of the Erechtheum, and proved to the Egyptians, from whom +the architectural idea was borrowed, how far more beautifully and +gracefully such figures could be carved in Athens than on the banks of +the Nile. + +There can be no doubt as to the value of statuary, which was the +special province of Phidias, in enhancing the _ensemble_ of Grecian +architectural grouping, and particularly valuable was the colossal +figure of Minerva Promachus in contributing to the grandiose effect of +the Athenian Acropolis. This noble work of Phidias was seventy feet +high and made entirely of bronze, said to have been taken from the +Medes, who disembarked at Marathon. The colossal goddess stood exposed, +and in a position where, in looking far away over the Ægean sea, she +might be an inspiration to the returning Athenian mariner, and where, +in glancing from her lofty eminence, “she seemed, by her attitude and +her accoutrements, to promise protection to the city beneath her, and +to bid defiance to her enemies.” + +Another architectural statue, if it may be called such, was that of +the same goddess, in gold and ivory, which dominated the interior of +the Parthenon. This work of Phidias, second only in beauty and size +to the chryselephantine statue of Jupiter at Olympia, is said to +have cost $465,000. The figure of Minerva was forty feet in height, +and was presented standing in a tunic which reached to her feet. A +casque covered her head, her right hand held a spear, and her left a +figure of Victory. The exquisite workmanship of the carving on the +buckler resting at the feet of the deity came near involving Pericles +and Phidias in another web of trouble, for it was asserted that the +sculptor had introduced his own portrait and that of his patron among +the combatants of a battle between the Athenians and Amazons, there +portrayed. The captious objection was set up that such a liberty was +insulting to Athene. Phidias, as related by some writers, was cast +into prison for this act of impiety, and died there. Others claim, +however, that this was not so, but that Phidias, before sentence could +be passed, fled to Elis, where he at once entered upon the work of +modelling the great statue of the Olympian Jupiter. + +In respect to both statues, he was implicated with Pericles, as accused +by his enemies, with pilfering the gold donated for their construction. +These various accusations have led to considerable confusion in respect +to much of his personal history and final end, and although it was +proved by removing the gold plates and weighing them, that he was not +guilty of the alleged crime, it is very probable that his death was as +much due to disappointed hopes and mortification consequent upon the +false charge as it was to any public executioner of the time. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ARCHITECTS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES. + + +It is not the intention, in recalling some of the more conspicuous +architects who flourished in the time of Pericles, to confine them to +those only who were directly in his employ, but to group together all +who became prominent factors in the architectural development of that +age, both for some years before and after Pericles’s reign of power. + +To have carried forward the many important works which the great leader +instituted, and which were advanced with a precision and rapidity +remarkable for that or any other time, considering their size and +importance, the skill and services of many architects were brought +naturally into requisition. As a result we have the record of an +unusually large number of such artists, and in respect to a few some +little specific data relating to their lives. The architects, however, +of many of the most important works are unknown. + +If we approach Athens, like the Attic mariner of old, through the +Piræus, one of its sea gates, we are attracted at once to the beautiful +architectural display which this seaport town, some five or six +miles distant from the Grecian metropolis, presents. The entrance to +the harbor was ornamented with two lions, and the harbor-basin was +fringed with magnificent colonnades and porticos, which disguised the +warehouses and bazaars. Within the town were numerous temples, two +theatres and other buildings of artistic effect and merit. + +The road to Athens lay between massive fortified walls having a width +of fifteen feet at the top, and built to a height of sixty feet. They +were known as the “Long Walls,” and they enclosed a space about the +Piræus, said by Thucydides to have been not less than one hundred and +twenty-four stadia in circumference, or about fifteen miles. + +It is only just to state that the walls which led from Athens to +Piræus, as well as those which connected it with the other sea gates +of Munychia and Phalerus, were originally planned and partly executed +under Themistocles and Cimon. Themistocles intended to construct these +walls to a height of one hundred and twenty feet; but Pericles deemed +this entirely unnecessary, and cut the height in two, as we have seen. +He also added a third wall between that running to the north of the +Piræan fortifications and that reaching to the Phalerum. Socrates +speaks of having heard Pericles mention this wall to the people. + +The architects for much of this massive mural work were Hippodamus +and Callicrates, and because Pericles did not hurry them to the same +extent that he hurried others engaged in perhaps less important, if +more decorative, undertakings, Cratinus, the satirist, ridiculed the +slowness of the work, while aiming a sly shaft of irony at Pericles’s +oratorical gifts: + + “Stones upon stones the orator has pil’d + With swelling words, but words will build no walls.” + +Hippodamus was one of the geniuses of his day, and has been called +the “Wren of his age.” Perhaps it would be more fitting to speak of +Sir Christopher Wren as the Hippodamus of _his_ time, inasmuch as the +architectural achievements of the Greek were on a much more magnificent +scale than those of the Englishman. Among some of the conspicuous works +credited to him was the grand Athenian Agora, or Forum, which was made +up of a rich assemblage of colonnades, temples, altars and statues, all +taking his name as the Hippodamæa. But whether he is to be credited +with being more especially a civil engineer than an architect may be +inferred from his work at the Piræus and in laying out entire cities. + +He was called the “Excentric Architect” doubtless because he mingled +with the practice of his profession a desire to be considered as +thoroughly versed in all the physical sciences, a personal affectation +which caused him to be ranked among the sophists. It is claimed that it +was against Hippodamus that Aristophanes aimed much of his wit. + +Hippodamus was the son of Euryphon of Miletus, one of the most famous +of the Greek physicians and among the first to have knowledge of the +difference between the veins and arteries, and the uses of each. As +to his early education and advantages we are not informed, he being +referred to by early writers only in a professional way. + +Besides his employment upon the “Long Walls,” the Agora and other +edifices, Pericles engaged his talents, as we have intimated, in laying +out the port of Piræus, which he did, with broad streets and avenues +intersecting each other at right angles across the city. This plan of +street construction he also introduced in other cities of Greece and +her colonies with which he had to do, especially at Thurü on the site +of the ancient Sybaris, which he visited with the Athenian colonists, +and later at Rhodes. This last-mentioned city, which in the age of +Pericles was one of the most beautiful, regular and prosperous of the +times, was almost wholly the work of Hippodamus. + +Callicrates, who assisted Hippodamus with the “Long Walls,” was also an +associate of Ictinus, perhaps the greatest architect of his time, in +the building of the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. The architect +Callicrates should not be mistaken for the Lacedæmonian sculptor of +the same name who achieved great celebrity for his skill in carving +the most minute objects, and of whom it is related that he made ants +and other insects in ivory which were so very small that their limbs +could not be distinguished by the naked eye. This seems all the more +remarkable when it is remembered that the ancients had no magnifying +glasses. + +A walk of five or six miles under the shadows of the tall walls of +Hippodamus and Callicrates to view the greater architectural glories +of the city of Athens in the time of Pericles will doubtless repay us. +While this queen city of the ancient world is enrobed in many triumphs +of the builder’s art, we will probably pass them all by for the time +being to examine more carefully the gems that stand forth from the +Acropolis, glittering under the blue Grecian sky like white jewels in +the proud city’s coronet. + +This magnificent citadel, protected by Pelasgian walls and dedicated +to the pagan deity Minerva, could be entered but upon one side, the +western, where the massive gate or vestibule of the Propylæa occupied +the centre. Fragments of this great gate still give evidence to the +modern traveller of its former stately splendor. + +“Here,” says Bishop Wordsworth, “above all places at Athens, the mind +of the traveller enjoys an exquisite pleasure. It seems as if this +portal had been spared in order that our imagination might send through +it, as through a triumphal arch, all the glories of Athenian antiquity +in visible parade. It was this particular point in the localities of +Athens which was most admired by the Athenians themselves; nor is +this surprising; let us conceive such a restitution of this fabric +as its surviving fragments will suggest—let us imagine it restored +to its pristine beauty—let it rise once more in the full dignity of +its youthful nature—let all its architectural decorations be fresh +and perfect—let their mouldings be again brilliant with their glowing +tints of red and blue—let the coffers of its soffits be again spangled +with stars, and the marble antæ be fringed over as they were once with +delicate embroidery of ivy-leaf ... and then let the bronze valves of +these five gates of the Propylæa be suddenly flung open and all the +splendors of the interior of the Acropolis burst upon the view.” + +If this imaginative restoration of the sublimities of the Propylæa +is not sufficient to excite some interest in the building and the +slave-born architect who was its creator, let the glowing words of +Symonds be added, which refer not only to the grand vestibule itself, +but to the Panathenaic processions which were wont to pass its gates. + +“Musing thus upon the staircase of the Propylæa we may say with truth +that all our modern art is but as child’s play to that of the Greeks. +Very soul-subduing is the gloom of a cathedral like the Milanese Duomo +when the incense rises in blue clouds athwart the bands of sunlight +falling from the dome, and the crying of choirs upborne on the wings +of organ music fills the whole vast space with a mystery of melody. +Yet such ceremonial pomps as this are but as dreams and shapes of +visions when compared with the clearly defined splendors of a Greek +procession through marble peristyles in open air beneath the sun and +sky. That spectacle combined the harmonies of perfect human forms in +movement with the divine shapes of statues, the radiance of carefully +selected vestments with hues inwrought upon pure marble. The rhythms +and melodies of the Doric mood were sympathetic to the proportions of +the Doric colonnades. The grove of pillars through which the pageant +passed grew from the living rocks into shapes of beauty, fulfilling by +the inbreathed spirit of man nature’s blind yearning after absolute +completion. The sun itself, not thwarted by artificial gloom or tricked +with alien colors of stained glass, was made to minister in all his +strength to a pomp the pride of which was a display of form in manifold +magnificence. The ritual of the Greeks was the ritual of a race at one +with nature, glorying in its affiliation to the mighty mother of all +life, and striving to add by human art the coping stone and final touch +to her achievement.” + +The Propylæa stretched in all about one hundred and seventy feet across +the western side of the citadel, and was entirely built of Pentelic +marble. In the centre was a portico sixty feet broad of six fluted +Doric columns, each column thirty feet in height, and all supporting +a noble pediment. From this portico projected on either side a wing, +entered through three Ionic columns. Six Ionic columns assisted in +supporting the roof of the vestibule. The marble beams of this roof +were from seventeen to twenty-two feet in length and correspondingly +solid. The ceiling was richly carved and ornamented. Immediately in the +rear of the Ionic columns and at the end facing the Acropolis stood +the terminal wall, with its five bronze gates, the centre one, which +was the largest, being sufficiently broad to allow the passage of a +chariot or other such vehicle. Beyond this wall and its gates was the +posticum, adding eighteen feet to the depth of forty-three feet which +the building otherwise possessed. The temple of the “Wingless Victory,” +and the “Painted Chamber,” containing the finest works of the painter +Polygnotus, as they have been named, formed the wings, which presented +unbroken walls to the front, relieved only by the four Ionic columns +that supported the graceful entablature and pediment of the temple of +Niké Apteros on the right. + +As the building was begun in the year 437 B.C., and was entirely +completed within a period of five years, and was one of the most +imposing structures of its day, Pausanias is led to reflect that, “in +felicity of execution and in boldness and originality of design, it +rivalled the Parthenon.” Lübke’s comment on the structure is: “Thus in +this building the idea of fortress-like defence, as well as festive +welcome, was equally expressed. Especially admirable, however, was +the rich ceiling of the great three-naved court, both on account of +the bold span of its beams and the magnificent decoration of the +spaces between them (the coffers), which were brilliant with gold +and colors.[3] The Ionic form of the columns in the interior also +corresponded with this festive, cheerful character; while the two rows +of columns on the outside, together with the rest of the exterior of +the building, exhibited the seriousness and dignity of the Doric style.” + +Thus has much been quoted in description and eulogy of this noble piece +of architecture; would that as much might be quoted in respect to the +talents and career of its gifted designer, but of him there is only the +shadow of comment, from which it is possible to weave but the faintest +fabric of certainty concerning his life. + +His name was Mnesicles, and we are told that he was a slave born in +the household of Pericles. That he should have been chosen to create +so important an architectural work speaks for the privilege which the +humblest born might hope to attain in rising to positions of trust and +prominence in the days of that great leader. Mnesicles early manifested +an aptitude for architecture, and was permitted by his illustrious +patron and owner to exercise his talent in the erection of buildings +of inferior consequence before being entrusted with more ambitious +works. The Propylæa was not the only work of magnitude upon which +he was engaged, nor was it the most beautiful, in the judgment of some +critics, although the most important, for he was the architect as well +of the graceful Doric temple of Theseus, which has always been regarded +as one of the finest architectural conceptions the ancient city of +Athens possessed. + +[Illustration: THE FALL OF MNESICLES FROM THE PROPYLÆA.] + +An incident in his life which awakened the affectionate interest of +Pericles and the solicitude of the goddess Athene, whom he was serving +so well, is told by Plutarch and other early biographers. It is in +effect that while inspecting the almost completed work of the Propylæa +he fell from the summit of the pediment and was most severely injured. +He was taken at once to the house of Pericles, where he received the +personal attention of the great ruler. It was while he lay at death’s +door that it is said Minerva appeared to Pericles in a dream, and told +him to administer to Mnesicles a medicine distilled from the wall-plant +pellitory. This was done, and the life of the architect was spared. +The only other fact associated with the life of Mnesicles which has +been preserved to us is one mentioned by Pliny to the effect that the +sculptor Stipax of Cyprus made a statue of the architect which became +very celebrated in its time, and which was called _Splanchnoptes_. +It was given this name because it represented a person roasting the +entrails of the victim at a sacrifice, at the same time blowing the +fire with his breath. There is nothing suggestive of the architect in +question or his profession, but it is supposed to have been a statue +of Mnesicles, from the fact that Pliny speaks of the subject as having +been a slave of Pericles, who was cured of the wounds received in a +fall from the Propylæa by an herb which Minerva had suggested should be +given as a medicine. It is unfortunate that the statue has not survived +to give us some idea of the features of at least one of the great +architects of antiquity. Some recent discoveries on the Acropolis have, +however, brought forth fragments which are supposed to have been parts +of the base. + +If there is any one of the Greek architects of the time of Pericles +who can be said to have secured for himself a degree of popular +notoriety throughout subsequent ages it is the accomplished Ictinus, +the chief architect of the Parthenon and the designer of at least two +other conspicuously beautiful buildings of which we know—namely, the +temple of Apollo Epicurus, near Phigalia in Arcadia, and the temple of +Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis. It is, no doubt, due, however, to his +connection with the Parthenon that his fame has so long endured. + +As already stated, Callicrates assisted in the building of the +Parthenon, and Phidias contributed the designs for the relief carvings +in the pediments and metopes, executing much of the work with his own +hands. Although Vitruvius says that “both Ictinus and Callicrates +exerted all their powers to make this temple worthy of the goddess who +presided over the arts,” it is not likely that Callicrates’s share in +the work was equal to that of Ictinus, but was confined more to the +heavy masonry, and in offering to Ictinus such advice as he might seek +in giving to the building the greatest substantiality and permanency. + +The Parthenon, which, among the several masterpieces of the Acropolis, +must be acknowledged the greatest, stood upon a rocky elevation in the +citadel, which so far elevated the structure as to bring the pavement +of the peristyle upon a level with the capitals of the columns of the +eastern portico of the Propylæa. This was the same site which had been +occupied formerly by an earlier temple to Minerva, known among the +Athenians as the Hecatompedon on account of its proportions. + +The Parthenon of Ictinus is said to have cost one thousand talents, or +what would be equal to about $1,100,000 of our money. It was begun the +year 422 B.C., and completed at the expiration of sixteen years. It +conformed to the usual shape of the Greek temples, being rectangular +and peripteral. The length from east to west was two hundred and +twenty-seven feet and seven inches, the width a little over one +hundred and one feet. The Doric order was employed for the exterior, +the columns which surrounded the cell on all sides being thirty-four +feet in height, with a diameter of six feet at the base. There were +forty-six of these columns, springing directly from the stylobate or +steps, all fluted with twenty channels, and each carrying its share of +a very beautiful entablature. The gables or pediments at each end of +the temple were of flat pitch. The total height of the building from +the steps to the top of the gables was sixty-four feet. White marble +from Mount Pentelicum, “wrought,” as Mr. Kinnaird expresses it, “with +the exquisite finish of a cameo,” was the material employed for the +entire structure, with the exception of the supporting timbers of the +roof, which were wood covered with marble tiles. + +The interior, to quote Mr. Kinnaird again, “enshrined the +chryselephantine colossus with all its gorgeous adjuncts, and comprised +sculptural decoration alone for one edifice exceeding in quantity that +of all recent national monuments; consisting of a range of eleven +hundred feet of sculpture and containing, on calculation, upward of +six hundred figures, a portion of which were colossal, enriched by +painting and probably golden ornaments. Here has been really verified +the prediction of Pericles that, when the edifices of rival states +would be mouldering in oblivion, the splendor of his city would be +still paramount and triumphant.” In respect to the richness of its +interior treasures, very much the same idea is expressed by Bishop +Wordsworth, who says, in the course of his description of the building: +“It would, therefore, be a very erroneous idea to regard this temple +which we are describing merely as the best school of architecture in +the world. It was also the noblest school of sculpture and the richest +gallery of painting.” + +The cleverness of the architects in insuring to the Parthenon, after +its completion, the appearance of absolute harmony of proportion in +all its outward lines, is one of their best claims to that celebrity +which they have justly earned. As it goes so far toward illustrating +their great professional skill, the reader may be interested in reading +the language used by Professor Roger Smith of London in explaining the +measures adopted by Ictinus and possibly Callicrates also, to correct +the optical defects which the Parthenon might otherwise have possessed +when completed. + +“The delicacy and subtlety of these [optical illusions] are extreme, +but there can be no manner of doubt that they existed. The best known +correction is the diminution in diameter or taper, and the _entasis_ +or convex curve of the tapered outline of the shaft of the column. +Without the taper, which is perceptible enough in the order of this +building, and much more marked in the order of earlier buildings, +the columns would look top-heavy; but the _entasis_ is an additional +optical correction to prevent their outline from appearing hollowed, +which it would have done had there been no curve. The columns of the +Parthenon have shafts that are over thirty-four feet high, and diminish +from a diameter of 6.15 feet at the bottom to 4.81 feet at the top. +The outline between these points is convex, but so slightly so that +the curve departs at the point of greatest curvature not more than +three-quarters of an inch from the straight line joining the top and +bottom. This is, however, just sufficient to correct the tendency to +look hollow in the middle. + +“A second correction is intended to overcome the apparent tendency of +a building to spread outward toward the top. This is met by inclining +the columns slightly inward. So slight, however, is the inclination, +that were the axes of two columns on opposite sides of the Parthenon +continued upward till they met, the meeting point would be 1952 yards, +or, in other words, more than one mile from the ground. + +“Another optical correction is applied to the horizontal lines. In +order to overcome a tendency which exists in all long lines to seem as +though they drop in the middle, the lines of the architrave of the top +step and of other horizontal features of the building are all slightly +curved. The difference between the outline of the top step of the +Parthenon and a straight line joining its two ends is at the greatest +only just two inches.” + +Still another correction which Professor Smith alludes to, in respect +to the vertical proportions of the building, he does not discuss more +than to say: “The small additions, amounting in the entire length of +the order to less than five inches, were made to the heights of the +various members of the order, with a view to secure that from one +definite point of view the effect of foreshortening should be exactly +compensated, and so the building should appear to the spectator to be +perfectly proportioned.” + +The Parthenon was not, as is popularly supposed, a temple for the +worship of Minerva. The sanctuary for that particular purpose was +in the Erechtheum, a triple temple, located upon the Acropolis not +very far distant from the Parthenon, and having wings dedicated +respectively to Minerva Polias, to Erechtheus or Neptune, wherein was +a well of salt water, and to the Nymph Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops. +The Parthenon, however, served as a national treasury and repository +for the valuable offerings to the goddess, as well as “a central point +for the Panathenaic festival,” where prizes might be distributed to +the victorious competitors. Indeed, the decorations of Phidias would +tend to corroborate this inference, as the sculptured low relief of the +frieze represented the Panathenaic procession. The rich relief carvings +in the tympanums of the front and rear pediments of the building, also +by Phidias, the designs of which may be found described in almost any +work on Grecian art, have been reproduced in some of the vignettes of +this book. + +In alluding to the Erechtheum, which, like the Parthenon and the +Propylæa, still presents shapely and beautiful ruins to grace the +Acropolis, attract the tourist and lend to the lover of art the best +criterion of the ideal age of Grecian architecture, we must mourn the +fact that the architect who designed this magnificent example of the +Ionic order is not known, and it is not likely that he ever will be. +The building was not finished at the time of the death of Pericles. +Because of an inscription found in the Acropolis, and now in the +British Museum, containing the particulars of a minute professional +survey of the unfinished parts, made by an Athenian architect named +Philocles, in the year 336 B.C., this architect has been given by some +the credit of having been the author of the entire structure; but that +he could not have been is clearly proven by the known fact that much of +the temple was constructed, as we have stated, in the time of Pericles, +or about one hundred years earlier. Nothing further, by the way, is +known of Philocles than is here given. + +About two thousand years had passed without that great leveller Time +or the corroding influences of the elements marring to any very +serious extent the beauty and completeness of the Parthenon, during +which period it had suffered two changes most antagonistic to its +original purpose, having been transformed at one time into a Christian +church and at another into a Turkish mosque. In respect to the first +transformation, it is well to note that the significance of its name +was not wholly lost in the change. Parthenon means Virgin, and the +Christians called the church into which they turned it the Church of +the Blessed Virgin. It was seen entire by Spon and Wheeler in 1676. But +when the Venetians, in their war with the Turks, eleven years later, +besieged the citadel, they threw a bomb upon the roof of the noble +structure, which, passing through it, ignited the powder which had +been stored in the building by the Turks. The result was an explosion +which divided and reduced the temple to its present condition, save for +further depredations which seem hardly creditable. The iconoclastic +Turks found this pride of Pericles most useful as a quarry upon which +to draw for much of the material used in their own buildings, and it +is to be regretted also that Lord Elgin should have found it necessary +to enrich a distant museum in London with many of its most beautiful +carvings, adding further desecration to “what Goth and Turk and Time +had spared.” Vitruvius informs us that Ictinus, in collaboration with +another architect, not otherwise mentioned, wrote a book upon the +Parthenon, his greatest masterpiece. + +After searching the world over for her dear, lost daughter, the +beautiful Proserpine, who had been spirited away to the realm of Pluto, +Ceres finally gave up the quest and mournfully settled down at Eleusis, +a city in fertile Bœotia, about fourteen miles from Athens. Here was +erected in her honor and in memory of Proserpine an Ionic temple by the +people for whom she became sponsor. The Persians, during their invasion +of Attica, burned the temple, but Pericles caused it to be rebuilt, +and selected Ictinus as the architect. He erected a handsomer structure +in the Doric style, which, it is said, was without exposed columns. + +Whether Ictinus lived long enough to complete the temple to Ceres and +Proserpine or not, or was called away for other purposes, is not known, +but it appears that other architects were associated with its design +and erection, both before as well as after his connection with it. +Corœbus is mentioned also as an architect, in the employ of Pericles, +who began the work on the mystic cell, but that his sudden death +resulted in the substitution of Ictinus. It is more probable, however, +that Ictinus had previously furnished the design of the building and +that Corœbus had been merely acting under his supervision. Following +Ictinus was another Athenian architect appointed by Pericles, and +the designer of the demos of Cholargos. He is said to have built +the pediment of the temple with the timpanum open, according to an +ancient fashion, in order to light the cell, which, if Strabo is to be +believed, was capable of accommodating thirty thousand persons. + +In the time of Demetrius Phalereus, the immediate successor of +Alexander, Philo, or Philon, as his name is sometimes written, a +very eminent architect, also of Athens, was engaged to add a portico +of twelve Doric columns to this temple of Ceres. That Metagenes of +Xypete, and son of Ctesiphon, who has already been discussed in our +allusion to the temple of Diana at Ephesus, should be mentioned as the +architect who completed the entablature and an upper row of columns to +this Eleusian temple, is probably a mistake. The time of Metagenes was, +as we have seen, much earlier (about 560 B.C.), and while he might have +been engaged upon the first temple to Ceres at Eleusis, it is quite +impossible for him to have been employed by Pericles in the building of +that with which Ictinus had to do. + +When Alaric, the German, made his angry invasion into Greece in 396 +B.C., because refused command of the armies of the Eastern empire, he +destroyed very many works of Greek art, and this temple among them was +one of the unfortunates that assisted to satiate his wrath. + +The third important work with which Ictinus is reported to have been +connected was the Doric temple to Apollo in the village of Bassæ, near +Cotylion, in Arcadia, which was known as the temple to Apollo Epicurus +(the Preserver). Pausanias speaks of this as being next to that at +Tagea, the finest temple in the Peloponnesus “from the beauty of its +stone and the symmetry of its proportions.” This temple is still a +beautiful ruin, thirty-four of the original thirty-eight columns of the +peristyle standing. The structure, which in the interior possessed two +rows of columns in the Ionic order, was originally admirably planned +for sculptural decoration and statuary and held many fine specimens of +the handiwork of Phidias and his school. Some of the carvings of the +frieze and other parts of the building, which are to be seen in the +British Museum, are spoken of by Lübke as the boldest and most animated +compositions among all that is preserved to us of the productions of +Greek art. + +On the southeast slope of the Acropolis Pericles caused to be erected +a building which departed broadly from the prevailing rectangular +construction of the time. In was oval on plan, Doric in order, and its +portico was enclosed by thirty-two columns. The most original feature +of the building, however, was the roof, which was constructed in the +shape of a cone and was supported by rafters formed of the masts of the +ships captured in the Persian wars. From just above the cornice of the +drum there projected around the entire roof a row of windows which may +possibly be credited with being the archetypes of our modern dormer +windows. This building was called the Odeum, or, as it is now termed, +the Odeon, and was devoted to music. + +Cratinus, the comic poet, who had levelled his satire at Pericles when +building the “Long Walls,” found in the roof of the Odeon, the idea +for the cone shape of which, by the way, it is claimed the architects +borrowed from the pavilion of the King of Persia, another mark for his +shafts of ridicule. He sings: + + “As Jove, an onion on his head he wears; + As Pericles, a whole orchestra bears; + Afraid of broils and banishments no more, + He tunes the shell he trembled at before.” + +The allusion to an onion by Cratinus is explained when it is remembered +that on account of the peculiar, long shape of his head the poets +of Athens called Pericles _Schinocephalos_, or squill-head, from +_schinos_, a squill, or sea-onion. Another version of Cratinus’s satire +is given thus: + + “So, we see here, + Jupiter Long-pate Pericles appear, + Since ostracism time he’s laid aside his head, + And wears the new Odeum in its stead.” + +Music received a considerable share of attention in the education +of the Greeks, and such was the influence which it is said to have +possessed over the physical as well as the mental nature of the +people, that it was credited with being an antidote for many of the +infirmities of the body as well as the mind. The Odeon was therefore +an institution of considerable importance in Athens. Here Pericles +conducted in person the musical contests between the Choruses which +the wealthy citizens of Athens instituted, and awarded to the +winners the tripod-trophies, which as marks of special honor they +were permitted to place upon their monuments. A street in Athens was +devoted almost entirely to these choragic monuments, many of which were +architecturally most beautiful. + +The architect of the Odeon of Pericles is not known, but after its +destruction by Aristion in the Mithridatic war, it was rebuilt by +Ariobarzanes II, Philopator, king of Cappadocia, in the original +form, who employed for the purpose the brother Roman architects, +Caius and Marius Stallius, together with a third architect by the +name of Menalippus, who recorded their connection with the building +upon the base of a statue which they erected in honor of their patron +Ariobarzanes. It is said that on certain days this later Odeon was used +as a grain market. + +If in the Parthenon on the Acropolis the acme of Doric magnificence +was reached by Ictinus and Callicrates, there was another temple +located below the Acropolis, which by many is ranked as the peer of the +Parthenon, in its perfection of Doric symmetry and grace. This was the +building to which allusion has already been made as another example of +the genius and skill of Mnesicles, the slave-architect of the Propylæa. +It was dedicated to the founder of Athens, the adventurous Theseus, and +stood not only as a temple in his honor, but as a mausoleum for his +ashes. + +Wordsworth, whose words of praise for the Propylæa have been quoted, is +also enthusiastic in his admiration of this second example of the skill +of the talented Mnesicles: “Such is the integrity of its structure and +the distinctness of its details that it requires no description beyond +that which a few glances might supply. Its beauty defies all; its solid +yet graceful form is, indeed, admirable; and the loveliness of its +coloring is such that from the rich, mellow hue which the marble has +now assumed it looks as if it had been quarried not from the bed of a +rocky mountain, but from the golden light of an Athenian sunset.” + +Although the temple of Theseus was one of the more modest Athenian +temples in point of size, it has always ranked as one of the most +perfect of the Attic-Doric order, and stands to-day as one of the least +dilapidated among all that have existed of the beautiful edifices of +ancient Greece. Indeed, as it was supposed to have been begun before +the Parthenon, or in the time of Cimon, it is claimed by some writers +that Ictinus took it for his model, although the Parthenon was about +twice as large. + +The Theseum was surrounded by columns, six at the front and rear and +thirteen on either flank. It was forty-five feet wide by one hundred +and four feet long. The building material was Pentelican marble, +which in the course of the centuries has taken on the soft yellowish +tinge which Bishop Wordsworth refers to. Ornamental sculpturing was +more sparingly employed than upon the Parthenon or some of the other +structures of the time, but such as was used was so judiciously handled +as to give the very noblest results. The sculpturing in the metopes of +the frieze and on the pronaos was the work of Phidias. + +It was built after the battle of Marathon, and, it would seem, after an +awakening on the part of the Athenians to that high sense of obligation +toward their early hero, Theseus, which had slumbered for centuries. +It was due to the Delphic Oracle that his remains were brought back to +Athens from their long banishment in the island of Scyros, and given +honorable burial, the son of Miltiades being selected to execute the +Oracle’s decree. The occasion was made one of festivity and rejoicing, +and the entombment in the beautiful new temple one of sacrifice and +solemnity. + +In closing this brief reference to the Theseum, the graceful lines from +Haygarth’s Greece, which so beautifully applaud it, may well be quoted: + + “Here let us pause, e’en at the vestibule + Of Theseus’s fane—with what stern majesty + It rears its pond’rous and eternal strength, + Still perfect, still unchang’d, as on the day + When the assembled throng of multitudes + With shouts proclaim’d th’ accomplish’d work and fell + Prostrate upon their faces to adore + Its marble splendor. How the golden gleam + Of noonday floats upon its graceful forms, + Tinging each grooved shaft, and storied frieze + And Doric triglyph! How the rays amidst + The op’ning columns glanc’d from point to point + Stream down the gloom of the long portico; + Where, link’d in moving mazes youths and maids + Lead the light dance, as erst in joyous hour + Of festival! How the broad pediment, + Embrown’d with shadow frowns above and spreads + Solemnity and reverential awe! + Proud monument of old magnificence! + Still thou survivest, nor has envious time + Impair’d thy beauty, save that it has spread + A deeper tint, and dimm’d the polished glare + Of thy refulgent whiteness. Let mine eyes + Feast on thy form, and find at every glance + Themes for imagination, and for thought; + Empires have fallen, yet art thou unchang’d; + And destiny, whose tide engulphs proud man + Has roll’d his harmless billows at thy base.” + +In the brilliant galaxy of great architects and sculptors of this +age, none shines more deservedly conspicuous by reason of true merit +and noble purpose than Polycletus of Argos, who is remembered more +as a statuary than by reason of his achievements in architecture. He +exercised his art between the years 452 and 412 B.C., and, like his +distinguished contemporaries, Myron and Phidias, was a pupil of the +Argive sculptor, Agelades. His celebrity has been compared to that +of his most famous brother pupil, Phidias, for the reason that while +Phidias gave the ideal standard in the portrayal of deities, Polycletus +created for all ages the perfect canon of the human form in art. This +he expressed in the figure of a youth holding in his hand a spear, +which was called the Doryphorus. In this figure the sculptor laid down +the rules of universal application with regard to the proportions of +the human body in its mean standard of height, breadth of chest, length +of limbs and so on. Socrates, according to Xenophon, went so far as to +place Polycletus on a level as a statuary, with Homer, Sophocles and +Xeuxis in their respective arts. + +A similar anecdote to that told of Phidias, when he listened to the +criticisms of the public upon his colossal statue of the Olympian Zeus, +is also related of Polycletus. He is said to have made two statues, +one of which he perfected according to his own ideals, and the other +he exhibited to the public and altered according to the suggestions +volunteered. In due time he exhibited both publicly side by side. The +one he had himself made was universally admired, while that which he +had changed to suit the popular fancy was condemned. “You yourself,” he +exclaimed, “made the statue you abuse, I, the one you admire.” + +One of his most celebrated works was the chryselephantine statue +of Hera, executed in his old age to rival the Athene and Zeus by +Phidias. Strabo considered that this statue equalled in beauty those +of Phidias, though it was surpassed by them in costliness and size. In +the respect that Polycletus followed the Homeric description of Hera, +and presented the goddess clothed from her waist down, he may be said +to have followed the precedent of Phidias; in other respects, however, +he drew upon his own fancy. Juno was seated upon a golden throne; her +head was crowned with a garland on which were worked the Graces and the +Hours; in one hand she held the symbolical pomegranate and in the other +a sceptre surmounted by a cuckoo, a bird sacred to Hera on account of +having herself been changed into that form by Zeus. + +As an architect Polycletus will be found as the designer of the +theatre at Epidaurus, where was also located the beautiful temple +dedicated to Æsculapius, and which Pausanias pronounced to be superior +in symmetry and elegance to every other in Greece and Rome. It was +capable of accommodating twelve thousand spectators, and its ruins, as +well as those of the white marble circular Tholus, by the same artist, +are still to be seen in an unusual condition of preservation. + +Among the other architects who have been variously mentioned as having +pursued their profession toward the close of this century, but who can +hardly take equal rank with those already alluded to, may be mentioned +Eupolinus, an Argive artist, who rebuilt the great Heræum at Mycenæ +after its destruction by fire in the year 423 B.C., the entablature of +which was ornamented with sculptures representing the wars of the gods +and giants and the Trojan wars; Cleœtas, who was one of the assistant +architects under Phidias, and whose chief claim to distinction is based +upon his construction of the starting place in the Olympian Stadium, +and Democopus Myrilla, who built the theatre at Syracuse. Vitruvius +also speaks of an architect and author of about this time—namely, +Silenus—who wrote on the Doric order. + +It is difficult to close this chapter, in which but very superficial +reference has been made to the architectural lights of the golden +age of art in Greece, without glancing back at the magnificent city +of Athens, the grand product of much of their creative skill, with +feelings of regret that with all her numerous and noble monuments, +dedicated to gods and men, there is not one that bears the imprint of +its creator. We see in this glance forest-like colonnades of glittering +white columns; we see the House of the Five Hundred Senators, the +Tholus, the Hall of Hermæ, the Agora, the Pnyx, “where the Athenian +orator spoke from a block of bare stone;” the Stoic Hall, in which +philosophy was taught; the Prytaneum, where the loved laws of Solon +were preserved; the Lyceum, with its hundred columns from Lydia; +the Theatre of Bacchus and the Mausoleum of Tolus. We see temples +innumerable, the grandest of all those to Jupiter and Theseus; but +others of fascinating merit, those of Ceres and of Cybele and of Mars, +and of Vulcan, of Venus, of Æacus, of the Dioscuri, of Hercules, of +Diana Agrotera, of Bacchus Lunnæus, of Æsculapius, of Eumenides, and +that to Glory, erected with the booty from the glorious field of +Marathon, wherein stood the Venus of Phidias; and we see the Acropolis +towering above all, lending other magnificent architectural triumphs +to the ensemble; and although we see slabs among them “inscribed with +the records of Athenian history, with civil contracts and articles +of peace, with memorials of honors awarded to patriotic citizens or +munificent strangers,” we find no monument, whether in the time of +Pericles or later, inscribed with the name of Ictinus, or Hippodamus, +or Callicrates, or the poor slave, Mnesicles, who was saved by Minerva +to be forgotten by man. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The decoration referred to was the work of the distinguished +painter Protogenes. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LATER GREEK ARCHITECTS. + + +The first architect as well as artist of decided merit who arose to +historic distinction at the beginning of the later Attic school, or +that which followed immediately upon the school of Phidias, and one +of the first to treat the Corinthian idea, then flowering into favor +with originality and artistic skill, was the deserving and accomplished +Scopas. Reference has already been made to this artist in connection +with the temple of Diana at Ephesus, for which, it is said, he +furnished the most beautiful of all the numerous columns with which +that temple was enriched. This statement is made without prejudice +to the great Praxiteles, who was contemporaneous with Scopas, and +who excelled him as a statuary, if he did not compete with him as an +architect. + +A mistake of Pliny, which assigned Scopas to an earlier age, has +finally been corrected, and it has been settled that the period when +he exercised his art was between the years 395 and 350 B.C. Scopas +was a native of Paros, a subject island of Athens, and sprung from a +family which for several generations before his advent into the world +had practised the plastic arts. His descendants also walked in the same +artistic paths of life for many generations. Like Polycletus, with whom +he is most favorably compared, the architectural side of his career was +greatly eclipsed by that which displayed his genius as a sculptor. + +His statues were numerous, and fortunately many of them still exist +scattered in various European museums and galleries. Among such of +his works considered the most interesting is the well-known series +of figures representing the destruction of the sons and daughters +of Niobe. In the time of Pliny these statues stood in the temple of +Apollo Socianus at Rome, and it was then a question whether they were +the works of Scopas or Praxiteles. In fact, many of the former’s +finest efforts have been attributed to the latter artist. Of this +group Schlegel says: “In the group of Niobe there is the most perfect +expression of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and +mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of +Heaven. The daughter clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of +her mother, in her infantile innocence can have no other fear than for +herself; the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented +in a manner more tender or affecting. Can there on the other hand +be exhibited to the senses a more beautiful image of self-devoting, +heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forward that, +if possible, she may alone received the destructive bolt? Pride and +repugnance are melted down in the most ardent maternal love. The more +than earthly dignity of the features is the less disfigured by pain, as +from the quick repetition of the shocks she appears, as in the fable, +to have become insensible and motionless. Before this figure, twice +transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated—before this line +of demarcation of all human suffering the most callous beholder is +dissolved in tears.” + +Another highly esteemed work of Scopas, which Pliny says stood in the +shrine of Cneius Domitius in the Flaminian circus in Rome, represented +Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by the divinities of the sea. +It consisted of figures of Neptune, Thetis and Achilles surrounded +by Nereids sitting on dolphins and other large fish, and attended by +Tritons and sea monsters. In the opinion of Pliny, these figures alone +would have been sufficient to have immortalized the artist, even if +they had cost the labor of his entire life. + +His statues of Venus, are, after all, perhaps the most remarkable of +his works in sculpture. One of these statues, if not the original, +is supposed to have been the prototype of one of the most celebrated +and beautiful portrayals of that charming deity in the world to-day. +Another to which Pliny gives particular prominence was that in which +the goddess is presented nude and which was found in the temple of +Brutus Callaicus in Rome. This statue, he adds, “would have conferred +renown upon any other city, but at Rome the immense number of works +of art and the bustle of daily life in a great city distracted the +attention of men.” It is probably this work of art, which is thought +by some to have been superior to that by Praxiteles, which, with some +modifications, is credited with being the model after which Cleomenes +fashioned the celebrated Venus de Medicis. Pausanias and Pliny mention +also other portrayals of Venus by Scopas, but it is left to Waagen +and some other critics to ascribe the celebrated statue of Aphrodite, +in the Louvre in Paris, and known as the Venus de Milo, to this great +sculptor and architect. + +It is foreign to the purpose, however, to devote too much space to this +side of the art life of Scopas, but in treating of his connection with +the magnificent mausoleum which Artemesia erected at Halicarnassus, to +her husband, Mausolus, king of Caria, it will be argued doubtless that +the work of this artist on that famous mortuary monument, which ranked +as one of the seven winders of the world, was more in the line of a +decorative sculptor than of an architect. + +In this undertaking Scopas was associated with three other +architectural sculptors—namely, Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leocarus—all of +whom were Athenians. Each took as his special work the decoration of +one side of the building, Scopas choosing the east or principal façade. +The north and south sides had a width of about sixty-three feet; the +east and west were not quite so wide. + +Before outlining further the principal characteristics of the building, +it is only fair to say that the professional architects to whom is +due the credit for the plan of the structure were Phileus, an Ionian +whose name Vitruvius spells in a variety of ways, and Satyrus, whose +native city is not given, but who, according to the same authority, +wrote a description of the mausoleum. Phileus was also an author on +architecture, having written a volume on the Ionic temple of Athene +Polias at Priene, of which he was the designer, and which was one +of the most renowned buildings in Asia Minor, and a treatise on the +mausoleum, which was also located in that part of the globe. As for +Satyrus, whatever may have been the other public buildings of which he +was the architect, there is no record. + +The mausoleum had a total height of one hundred and forty feet, and +in general appearance combined orientalism in tomb-structure with the +perfections of Grecian architectural grace and elegance. The tomb +was contained within a rectangular substructure. Above was an Ionic +peristyle temple with nine columns on each side and eleven at the ends. +The frieze was elaborately carved and decorated, and the roof, which +was pyramidal in form, gave the oriental cast to the entire building. +At the apex of the roof was a colossal marble quadriga, in which a +statue of the deceased king Mausolus appeared. It is said that in the +sculptures and carvings of the different sides the respective artists +strove to rival each other, and that although queen Artemesia died +before the tomb was finished the four artists were so interested and +absorbed in their work that they determined to complete it at their own +risk. + +Up to the twelfth century after the Christian era this grand tomb stood +in a fairly good state of preservation, but soon after fell to pieces, +and was used from that time as a quarry by the Knights of St. John, +from which they took stone for the castles they built on the site of +the old Greek Acropolis. Later still much of the marble was taken to +repair their fortifications, and it is even said to make lime, showing +to what ignominious uses the very greatest of architectural glories may +finally come. However, some of the carvings have been redeemed from +the fortification walls and unearthed from other places in Budrun, the +modern Halicarnassus, to find a final resting place, let it be hoped, +in the British Museum. These rescued pieces of marble, of which there +are perhaps sufficient to reconstruct a quarter of the whole frieze, +though they are not continuous, are pronounced by competent judges to +be specimens of the work of the different artists, but there is no +means of determining which of them, if any, came from the chisel of +Scopas. + +The temple of Athene Alea at Tegea in Arcadia, often a sanctuary for +fugitives from Sparta, was an architectural creation of Scopas, which +it would appear belonged to him exclusively. Of all the temples in the +Peloponnesus this is said by Pausanias to have been the largest as well +as the most magnificent. That observant traveller, however, must have +been carried away somewhat by his enthusiasm over its architectural +attractions in ascribing to it such great size, as its dimensions were +not more than one hundred and sixty-four by seventy feet, being very +much smaller than other Grecian temples. + +The temple which Scopas built was not the first to the goddess to +occupy the same site, but followed a very much more ancient one, which +was destroyed by fire in the year 394 B.C. The tendency to introduce +the Corinthian order, which followed after the Peloponnesian wars, and +which continued to grow as Greece became more and more intermixed with +Roman ideas, is here early displayed. The columnar arrangement of the +temple was unusual; for the outside the Ionic style was used, there +being six columns at each end and fourteen on the sides; but on the +inside the Doric order was employed surmounted by the Corinthian. Both +pediments of the building were sculptured by Scopas or from his designs +under his immediate supervision. The pediment over the front portico +portrayed the chase of the Calydonian boar, and that in the rear the +battle of Telephus with Achilles; both being, according to Pausanias, +very animated compositions. The statue of the goddess Athene Alea, +contained in the cell, was carried off by the Emperor Augustus and +placed at the entrance of his new forum in Rome. Some fragments of the +pedimental sculptures have been discovered and placed in the British +Museum. + +To Scopas, in co-operation with Praxiteles, is also attributed the +graceful and beautiful Choragic monument of Lysicrates, at one time +called “the lantern of Demosthenes,” from the mistaken supposition +that the great orator used it as a study—a very strange use when it +is remembered that the little structure possessed neither doors nor +windows. In its day this monument was the pride of the street of +Tripods, and it still stands one of the best preserved evidences of the +taste and skill of its designers. + +In this monument the Corinthian style of decoration is displayed in its +perfection of grace, better, perhaps, than in any other structure of +that early time which is known to us. Stuart describes it as follows: +“The colonnade was constructed in the following manner: six equal +panels of white [Pentelic] marble, placed contiguous to each other on a +circular plan, formed a continued cylindrical wall, which of course was +divided from top to bottom into six equal parts by the junctures of the +panels. These columns projected somewhat more than half their diameters +from the surface of the cylindrical wall, and the wall entirely closed +up the intercolumination. Over this was placed the entablature and the +cupola, in neither of which any aperture was made, so that there was no +admission to the inside of this monument, and it was quite dark.” + +The “flower,” or crowning ornament of the monument, was a particularly +graceful and beautiful arrangement of acanthus leaves and volutes, +and the roof was worked out with great delicacy and originality in +the form of a thatch of laurel leaves and Vitruvian scrolls. If there +was any apportionment of the work on this monument between Scopas and +Praxiteles, it would be interesting to know what it was. + +Of the other architectural sculptors associated with Scopas in the +adornment of the tomb of Mausolus none is mentioned as having had any +other connection with architecture in a similar way, but all were +statuaries of distinction and high merit, who executed works in marble +or bronze, or both, that gave them prominence in their art. Among other +works by Bryaxis were five colossal statues in the island of Rhodes, of +which the celebrated “colossus of Rhodes,” however, was not one, and +also a statue of Apollo, which was destined for the temple of Daphnis +near Antiochus. The story is related that Julian the Apostate wished to +render to this figure peculiar worship and homage, but was prevented +from so doing by a miraculous destruction of the temple and statue by +fire. Clement of Alexandria asserts that Bryaxis was the artist of +many works ascribed to Phidias. + +As to the share which Timotheus took in the decoration of the mausoleum +there is dispute among the Greek authorities, some ascribing his work +to Praxiteles; but there does not seem to be any just foundation for +the supposition that the sculpturing on the south side of the tomb +was by any other hand than that of Timotheus. As one of the great +statuaries of the later Attic school he was also among the most +prominent, his figure of Artemis being deemed worthy to be placed by +the side of the Apollo of Scopas, and the Latona of Praxiteles in the +temple which Augustus erected to Apollo on the Palatine. Other statues +of conspicuous merit are also ascribed to him by Pausanias and Pliny. + +Leochares, the last of the quartette, was also inferior only to Scopas +and Praxiteles in his school of art. He was particularly skilful with +portrait-statues, the most successful of which were those of Philip +of Macedon, Alexander his son, Amyntas, Olympias and Eurydice, all of +which were made of ivory and gold, and were placed in the Phillippeion, +a circular building in the Altis at Olympia, erected by Philip in +celebration of his victory at Chæroneia. But the _chef d’œuvre_ of +Leochares was a bronze statue of the rape of Ganymede. Pliny says of +this work that the eagle seemed to be sensible of what he was carrying +and to whom he was bearing the treasure, taking care not to hurt +the boy through his dress with his talons. The original statue was +frequently copied both in marble and on gems, several of which copies +are still extant: one in the Museo Pio-Clementino, another in the +library of St. Mark in Venice, and still another figures in Stuart’s +Athens, as an alto-relievo found among the ruins of Thessalonica. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ALEXANDRIAN ERA AND ROMAN SPOLIATION. + + +That epoch in the art life of the Hellenic people associated with +the influences arising out of the career and conquests of Alexander +the Great, which we have now reached, was one scarcely inferior in +interest to that of the time of Pericles. Overflowing as was the +great Macedonian leader’s love of art and great as was his ambition +to leave behind him lasting monuments that should fittingly stand for +the artistic culture of his time, still, for reasons arising partly +out of his own career and partly from the ever-changing impulses of +human feeling and taste, the art culture of his time must bow to the +superiority of that of the time of Pericles, if, in respect to those +other features of his leadership and accomplishment, to which history +gives a superior rank, his genius is eclipsed by none in the chronicles +of civilization. + +Alexander’s short life, so active in conquest and war, and so much +of it passed away from European associations or even the influences +of colonial Greece, necessarily gave him little time for indulgence +in the arts at home, while it permitted him to manifest it to some +considerable extent in founding cities and rearing temples in foreign +lands. To this self-imposed banishment, accompanied, as it was, by +large armies brought from Greece and her colonies, and the intermixing +of her people with foreigners of new tastes and habits of mind, may be +attributed that change of art feeling at home which began to assert +itself about this time. On the other hand, however, its effect was +beneficial to the conquered countries in introducing a more elevated +art standard than had existed within them before. + +Personally, Alexander manifested a keen appreciation of the arts; +whether founded upon the same sincerity as that which appeared more +natural to the character of Pericles is a question; but we find that +Praxiteles, Lysippus and Apelles, the great artists of his time, were +no less publicly honored or more highly flattered than were Phidias or +Polycletus in the days of Pericles. It is related as an evidence of +Alexander’s enthusiasm for art, that he compensated Apelles for his +celebrated portrait of him by ordering that the artist’s reward should +be _measured out in gold_ instead of being _counted_, an order which +perhaps quite as much illustrated the theatrical impulses of which he +could be guilty as the calm expression of a genuine appreciation. + +Even had Alexander been spared, and had returned to Greece to continue +a long life of usefulness to his people, instead of having been cut off +in his prime at Babylon, although he might have done much more for art +than he did, still he could not have accomplished for it what had been +attained by Pericles. This may be argued from his birth, schooling and +the stronger trend of his mind, which led in very different directions. +The Macedonian had not certainly the traditions of art culture in his +veins, as was the case with the more polished Athenian, and being +fonder of the dazzlement of pomp and show, natural to a leader who from +infancy had been almost continuously associated with the accoutrements +and regalia of armies, it is not likely that whatever he might have +accomplished for art more than that which he actually did, would have +manifested that purity of ideal, as well as refinement of execution +which so marked and dignified the work of Pericles. + +As there is always some time which must elapse before the tide, having +reached its flood, turns once more to slowly ebb, so was there a +time to be expressed in a few years when the plastic arts of Greece, +reaching their highest development in the age of Pericles, remained +stationary, before ebbing away to so-called Roman degeneracy, and the +mixed influence of various comparatively uncultured nationalities. + +The Alexandrian epoch marks the beginning of this turning-point. The +decadence took almost as many successive generations to the time +when Corinth was sacked by the Romans in 146 B.C., and the Italian +soldiers cast their dice upon the pictures of Aristides, as it had +taken to advance in the earlier ages of Greece, to the time when the +chryselephantine statues of Zeus and Athene, by Phidias, were the +recognized perfect standards of godlike majesty and beauty, and the +Doryphorus of Polycletus was accepted as the criterion of human grace +and proportion. + +Of course the standard by which the perfection of architectural dignity +and purity can be measured is largely one of individual taste and +preferment, as is sometimes evidenced by the conflicting judgments of +the best critical authorities, but if we accept the conclusions of +centuries of the highest criticism, we must be prepared to concede that +the arts to which we refer reached their zenith as stated. However, +the expression, Roman degeneracy, is much too severe a one, if taken +in other than a comparative sense; for, whatever Grecian architecture +may have lost in ideal æstheticism by reason of Roman interference, it +must be granted the Romans that their own evolution in the appreciation +of the arts and the accomplishments of architecture resulted in a +magnificence which, when compared with our own time, gives them rank +second only to the Greeks, from whom they borrowed so much, and whom +they did not scruple to rob of nearly all their portable art treasures. +“Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the +Romans,” says Gibbon, “how many have escaped the notice of history, how +few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the +majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces +would be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat +of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness alone or their beauty +might deserve our attention; but they were rendered more interesting +by two important circumstances, which connect the agreeable history of +the arts with the more useful history of human manners. Many of these +works were erected at private expense, and almost all were intended for +public benefit.” + +But the burnishing of the Romans to the high polish which they finally +attained in the arts was a slow process, and one which met with many +interruptions, according as their rulers were individually affected by +a love of the artistic—a fact which in itself would show that art was +not an inherent quality in the Roman nature to the like degree that it +was in that of the Greek. To admire the Grecian æsthetic culture was +at first considered an evidence of effeminacy, and even Cato exclaimed +against the arts not seventeen years after the taking of Syracuse. The +Consul Mummius, in 146 B.C., some hundred years later, after the battle +which resulted in the capture of Corinth, proved very conclusively that +he had very little appreciation of the merit of the treasures he found +there, for he not only destroyed a great many, but shipped to Rome +many more, for the simple reason that, recognizing how much they were +prized by the Corinthians, he wisely saw that they might be useful in +Rome. This sacking of Grecian cities was quite popular, and the Roman +generals, in their conquests, seemed to strive which should bring +away to Rome the greatest number of statues and pictures. The elder +Scipio despoiled Spain and Africa, Flamius Sylla and Mummius exported +shiploads of the art of Greece, Æmilius despoiled Macedonia, and Scipio +the younger, when he destroyed Carthage, transferred to Rome the chief +ornaments of that city. + +In fact, the Roman generals were remarkable as art pilferers, using the +spoils not alone to adorn their public buildings and institutions, +but in some instances their private houses and palaces as well. It is +related of Scaurus that he embellished his temporary theatre, erected +for a few days’ use, with no less than three thousand statues. He also +returned to Rome with all the pictures of Sicyon, one of the most +eminent schools of painting in Greece, on a pretence that they would +compensate for a debt due the Roman people. From this habit of drawing +on foreigners it finally came to pass that private citizens took the +fever and entered upon the luxury. None was earlier in the field than +the Luculli, particularly Lucius Lucullus. Julius Cæsar was personally +a great collector, his hobby being gems, while his successor, Augustus, +displayed an acute interest in Corinthian vases. + +Augustus did much for the architectural adornment of Rome, and his +much-quoted remark to the effect that he found Rome a city of bricks +and left it one of marble, was, to a great degree, true. In fact, +Augustus manifested an æsthetic nature in many respects. Spence says, +speaking of the arts, that “the flavor of Augustus, like a gentle dew, +made them bud forth and blossom; and the sour reign of Tiberius, like a +sudden frost, checked their growth, and killed all their beauties.” Men +of genius were flattered, courted and enriched under Augustus, as they +were some four hundred years’ earlier in Athens under Pericles, with +the result that Vergil, Horace, Ovid and other poets of the greatest +merit sprung forward. Rome became in this age the seat of universal +government also, its wealth was enormous, its architectural decorations +numerous and splendid, and even its common streets were decked with +some of the finest statues in the world. Other great architectural +epochs of Rome were those of the time of Trojan and Hadrian. But as +evidence of the intermittent character of her art development, very +little was realized, as very little could be expected under the reigns +of such monsters as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. To Nero, however, +we must accord some little credit in having built a very remarkable +architectural composition, although undertaken for no public benefit, +but to satisfy his own profligate vanity. His “Golden Palace,” built +under the direction of the architects Celer and Severus, the most +eminent of their time, was ranked as the most “stupendous” structure +of its kind in all Italy. The palace was built after the conflagration +during which Nero is supposed to have amused himself with a violin. +Tacitus tells us that it was ornamented in every part with “pearls, +gems and the most precious materials,” especially gold, which was used +in reckless profusion. In the centre of a court adorned with a portico +of three rows of lofty columns, each row a mile long, stood a colossal +statue of that colossal sensualist and wicked monarch, which was one +hundred and twenty feet in height. Vespasian tore down the whole of +this piece of architectural vanity, restored the land which it had +occupied and by which it was surrounded to the people from whom it had +been stolen, and erected in its place the great public Coliseum and the +magnificent Temple of Peace. + +In alluding to the public palaces of amusement, Curio, a Roman Prætor, +some few years before the Christian era, is said to have built two +wooden theatres close together, which turned on pivots. During the +day they were turned away from each other, and different plays were +performed in each; then, with all the spectators, they were turned +together, forming an amphitheatre in which combats took place. The zeal +of the Roman architects to win popular favor by something novel and +striking was often very great. In Pompey’s theatre water was made to +run down the aisles, between the seats, in order to refresh spectators +in the heat of summer. + +But that the Roman architects were not always as careful in the +inspection of the buildings under their supervision as they should have +been, and, like some of our modern architects, permitted their works +to be used when in an unsafe condition, is shown from the unfortunate +catastrophe which resulted in the unexpected tumbling to pieces of the +theatre of Fidenæ near Rome. This accident happened in the reign of +Tiberius, and the name of the architect who suffered banishment for his +neglect was Attilius. The theatre was built of wood, and out of fifty +thousand people who were injured in the collapse twenty thousand are +said to have died. + +Of all the Roman emperors none is more interesting to the student of +Grecian architecture than Hadrian, who was a great admirer of Greece, +seeking to introduce the Hellenic institutions and modes of worship +in Rome, as well as the art, poetry and learning of Greece. He also +undertook to restore Athens, which had suffered greatly during the four +or five hundred years which had elapsed between his time and that of +Pericles, to something of her former architectural grandeur. Pope’s +couplet might have been Hadrian’s inspiration: + + “You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care, + Erect new wonders and the old repair.” + +Indeed, he caused to be inscribed upon the Arch of Honor, which he +erected in Athens, after the restoration, two inscriptions which, +if not in the best of taste, were in harmony with their author’s +self-love, of which he possessed no inconsiderable share. Upon that +side of the arch which faced the ancient city he wrote: “This is +Athens, the old city of Theseus,” and on that which fronted upon the +new city of his restoration and adornment was inscribed: “This is the +city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus.” In other words, the visitor was +expected to make his own comparison and perhaps draw the conclusion +intimated that Theseus was not, after all, to be compared with the +Roman Hadrian. + +Hadrian’s particular penchant was architecture, and his predominant +vices were vanity and jealousy, both of which were manifested in +his practice of that art. The magnificent villa which he erected at +Tiber, where he spent his declining years, and the ruins of which +even now cover a space equal to a large town, would indicate this, +as well as the grandiose mausoleum which towered high above the +banks of the Tiber at Rome, and which is now depleted of much of its +statuary and ornamentation, the Christian church of Saint Angelo. The +treatment which he accorded Trajan’s great architect, the accomplished +Apollodorus, is still another evidence of his vanity. + +Hadrian, like Louis I. of Bavaria, found delight in practising +personally the profession of architecture, and drew plans of buildings, +which the people thought was unbecoming a prince. Possibly this +objection was raised to discourage their ruler rather than the more +truthful one that his plans were not up to the high standard of his +time. However that may be, he insisted upon their being executed, and +it is said was rather pleased if the architects found fault with them. +But this was not the case with Apollodorus, whether because of what he +had accomplished for his predecessor Trajan, or because of professional +jealousy. + +Apollodorus was the architect of the Trajan column, composed of only +twenty-four stones, although one hundred and twenty-eight Roman feet +in height, and the square which surrounded it, considered the most +beautiful assemblage of buildings then known. The relief carvings which +were wound spirally around the Trajan column like a ribbon, represented +the incidents of the expedition against the Darians. The column +supported a statue of Trajan, which Pope Sextus V. substituted for one +of Saint Peter. A greater absurdity can hardly be conceived than that +of placing a peaceful apostle over the warlike representations of the +Dacian war. + +Apollodorus was also the architect and engineer of the great bridge +which stretched across the Danube in lower Hungary, which was formed +of twelve piers and twenty-two arches, said to have been the grandest +use of the arch in such works. Each arch was sixty feet wide and one +hundred and fifty feet high. The total height of the bridge was three +hundred feet and its length a mile and a half. Hadrian destroyed this +magnificent work, some say through fear of its use by barbarians, +others through jealousy. Perhaps the circumstances attending the death +of Apollodorus would point to the second reason as the true one. + +Hadrian had made the drawings of the double temple of Venus at Rome, +which he submitted to Apollodorus, doubtless for his commendation +rather than his criticism. The architect saw at a glance that the +sitting figures of the two goddesses, Roma and Venus, which the Emperor +had introduced in the little temple, were out of proportion, and so +large that if they stood up they would bump their heads against the +roof, if they did not take it off entirely. He called the Emperor’s +attention to this fact with the result that Hadrian became very angry, +or pretended to be so, and Apollodorus lost his head for his frankness. + +The favorite architect of Hadrian was Detrianus, to whom he entrusted +many of his most important undertakings. We find that he restored the +Pantheon of Agrippa, the Basilica of Neptune, the Forum of Augustus +and the Baths of Agrippina. As original works he designed the Mausoleum +of Hadrian, to which we have already alluded; the bridge of Ælius, +ornamented with its covering of brass, and supported by its forty-two +columns, terminating at the top with as many statues, and the villa at +Tivoli. He also erected many structures for his royal patron in Gaul, +among which was the Basilica Plotina, the most superb building in that +country, and again other buildings in England. The Roman wall from Eden +in Cumberland to Tyne in Northumberland, a distance of eighty miles, +which was built as a defence against the Caledonians, is attributed +to Detrianus. In Greece he embellished the famous temple of Jupiter +Olympus, and in Palestine he rebuilt Jerusalem, erected a theatre +and various pagan temples out of the stone from the Jewish temples, +and completed his sacrilege there by placing a statue of Jupiter on +the spot where Christ rose from the dead, and one of Venus on Mount +Calvary. A feat, however, which has perpetuated his fame quite as much +as any other of his professional achievements was the removing of +the colossal bronze statue of Nero, which stood in the court of the +“Golden Palace.” This difficult task he is said to have accomplished +without changing the erect posture of the huge figure, which, it will +be remembered, was one hundred and twenty-eight feet high, by the +assistance of twenty-four elephants. + +In returning once more to the Greek architects who have been left, +while a rather garrulous ramble has been made into the architectural +personality of Rome, it may be well not to attempt to do so at once, +but to pause for a moment, since we are so far from the chronology of +our subject, while the reader makes the acquaintance of two Hellenic +artists who, in the time of Quintius Metellus, 147 B.C., found +professional employment in Roman territory. + +Metellus was one of the first Romans to favor magnificent architecture +in his home capitol, and with the booty gathered in his Macedonian +campaigns he erected two temples in Rome, said to have been the first +temples built of marble in that city, one of which was dedicated to +Jupiter Stator, and the other to the white-armed Juno. The interiors +were profusely ornamented with the works of the great Grecian masters, +Praxiteles, Polycletus and Dionysius figuring largely. + +The names of the architects which Metellus brought or imported from +Greece for this work were Saurus and Batrachus, who may possibly have +been Ionians, inasmuch as they employed the Ionic order. These temples +were restored in the Corinthian style, under Augustus, two hundred +years later, by Hermodorus of Salamis, who was also the architect of +the temple of Mars in the Flaminian Circus. + +It is told of Saurus and Batrachus that they were so much pleased with +their work that they asked for no reward other than the privilege of +having their names inscribed on the temples. But as this honor was +denied them, they resorted to expedient to effect the same end. As +the name Saurus stood for lizard and Batrachus for frog, they carved +lizards and frogs on the temples, and were comparatively satisfied. A +rather absurd mistake occurred in respect to these two temples after +they were completed. It seems that nothing remained to be done but to +add the statues of Jupiter and Juno to each respectively; but by some +strange oversight the figure of Jupiter was erected in the house of +Juno, and that of Juno before the shrine of Jupiter. However, as the +two deities were rather closely connected by marriage, the mistake was +conveniently attributed to a whim of the gods and was not remedied. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE ALEXANDRIAN ARCHITECTS. + + +The boldest, most ingenious and original architect who found favor in +the sight of Alexander the Great was undoubtedly Dinocrates, who, like +his august patron, was also a Macedonian, and to whom an allusion has +already been made in connection with the temple of Diana at Ephesus. + +[Illustration: DINOCRATES BEFORE ALEXANDER THE GREAT.] + +His very introduction into the notice and attention of his +distinguished fellow-countryman would tend to prove that Dinocrates +was a person of expediency, if nothing else. Let Vitruvius tell the +story: “Dinocrates, the architect, relying on the powers of his skill +and ingenuity, while Alexander was in the midst of his conquests, set +out from Macedonia to the army, desirous of gaining the commendation +of his sovereign. That his introduction to the royal presence might +be facilitated, he obtained letters from his countrymen and relations +to men of the first rank and nobility about the king’s person, by +whom, being kindly received, he besought them to take the earliest +opportunity of accomplishing his wish. They promised fairly, but were +slow in performing, waiting, as they alleged, for a proper occasion. +Thinking, however, that they deferred this without just grounds, he +took his own course for the object he had in view. He was, I should +state, a man of tall stature, pleasing countenance and altogether of +dignified appearance. Trusting to the gifts with which nature had +endowed him, he put off his ordinary clothing, and, having annointed +himself with oil, crowned his head with a wreath of poplar, slung a +lion’s skin across his left shoulder, and, carrying a large club in his +right hand, he sallied forth to the royal tribunal, at a period when +the king was dispensing justice. + +“The novelty of his appearance excited the attention of the people, +and Alexander, soon discovering with astonishment the object of their +curiosity, ordered the crowd to make way for him, and demanded to know +who he was. ‘A Macedonian architect,’ replied Dinocrates, ‘who suggests +schemes and designs worthy your royal renown. I propose to form Mount +Athos into the statue of a man holding a spacious city in his left hand +and in his right a huge vase, into which shall be collected all the +streams of the mountain, which shall thence be poured into the sea.’ + +“Alexander, delighted at the proposition, made immediate inquiry if +the soil of the neighborhood were of a quality capable of yielding +sufficient produce for such a state. When, however, he found that all +its supplies must be furnished by sea, he thus addressed Dinocrates: +‘I admire the grand outline of your scheme, and am well pleased with +it; but I am of opinion he would be much to blame who planted a +colony on such a spot. For as an infant is nourished by the milk of +its mother, depending thereon for its progress to maturity, so a city +depends on the fertility of the country surrounding it for its riches, +its strength in population, and not less for its defence against an +enemy. Though your plan might be carried into execution, yet I think it +impolitic. I nevertheless request your attendance upon me, that I may +otherwise avail myself of your ingenuity.’ From that time Dinocrates +was in constant attendance on the king, and followed him into Egypt.” + +Vitruvius does not explain why it was that Dinocrates singled out the +curious costume, or rather lack of costume, which he did to attract the +attention of Alexander. It was, in fact, the garb of an athlete. Among +the early Greeks a professional athlete was regarded as a person of +social distinction, and if a particularly successful one, a personage +to whom a statue might be erected, or upon whom other honors might +be conferred. In fact, the uniform of an athlete was, as a rule, a +passport to the best society. Dinocrates undoubtedly knew this, and as +he was seeking an _entré_ into the very highest court circles, he took +not an extraordinary method of gaining it. + +Mount Athos, which the architect proposed to take as a basis for +what was really to be a gigantic statue of Alexander himself, was a +pyramidal mountain, at the extreme end of the Acte peninsula, having an +altitude of 6780 feet, and crowned with a cap of white marble, which +Dinocrates undoubtedly had in mind to utilize for a helmet. The country +surrounding the mountain was remarkable for its rural beauty, its +woods and ravines, and its people for their longevity. No wonder that +Alexander did not wish to disturb this peaceful neighborhood. + +Alexander Pope, who has given us an admirable rhymed translation of +the songs of Homer, seems to have been greatly impressed with the +practicability of this remarkable idea of Dinocrates. Spence, the +author of “Polymetis,” was once discussing the incident which Vitruvius +relates with Pope, remarking that he could not see how the Macedonian +architect could ever have carried his proposal into execution, when +Pope at once replied: “For my part, I have long since had an idea +how the thing might be done; and if anybody would make me a present +of a Welsh mountain and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it +executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the +figure must be in a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that +would be necessary, and for the city’s being in one hand. It should be +a rude, unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the +eyebrows, and a wood for the hair. The natural green turf should be +left wherever it would be necessary to represent the ground he reclines +on. It should be contrived so that the true point of view should be at +a considerable distance. When you are near it, it should still have the +appearance of a rough mountain, but at a proper distance such a rising +should be the leg, and such another an arm. It would be best if there +were a river, or rather a lake, at the bottom of it, for the rivulet +that came through his other hand to tumble down the hill and discharge +itself into the sea.” + +Mrs. Baillie, in her “Tour on the Continent,” has also a comment to +make on this proposition of Dinocrates and recalls the fact that a +somewhat similar idea was advanced to Napoleon I. “It is somewhat +singular,” she says, “that Mr. Pope should have thought this mad +project practicable, but it appears that there are still persons who +dream of such extravagant and fruitless undertakings. Some modern +Dinocrates had suggested to Bonaparte to have cut from the mountain +of the Simplon an immense colossal figure, as a sort of Genius of +the Alps. This was to have been of such enormous size that all the +passengers should have passed between its legs and arms in a zigzag +direction.” + +Another ingenious conception is attributed to Dinocrates in respect to +the temple of Diana, which he erected in the city of Alexandria for +Ptolemy Philadelphus, in memory of the sister-wife of that potentate, +Arsinoë. This relationship, by the way, is said to have been the first +ever formed, although it became quite common later in the time of the +Ptolemies. Arsinoë was much beloved by her husband, who not only called +an entire district in Egypt, Arsinoites, after her, but also gave +her name to several cities within his realm. Her features are still +preserved to us upon coins struck in her honor, and which represent her +crowned with a diadem. + +When Dinocrates received the commission to erect a temple to so +highly esteemed and devotedly remembered a queen, he apparently set +his ingenuity to work to give birth to a novelty that should not only +please the king, but astonish his subjects. It finally matured in a +proposition to roof the proposed temple with loadstones, in order +that they might attract into the air an iron statue of Arsinoë. As the +figure of the queen would thus appear suspended in the air without +any apparent mundane reason, the inference could be drawn that it was +by the divine will. Some authorities say that the entire inner walls +of the temple were to have been lined with loadstones, so that the +statue might appear suspended in the very centre of the cell, touching +nothing. Fortunately, both Dinocrates and Ptolemy died before the +project could be executed, otherwise they might have been witnesses +to the miserable failure such a chimerical fancy must have proved if +attempted, as any modern electrician will attest. + +When at Ectabana with Alexander, Dinocrates had still another +opportunity to display his resourceless originality, in directing the +obsequies of Hephæstion, which were of a most extraordinarily elaborate +nature, costing, it is recorded, 12,000 talents, or what would be +equivalent to over $1,300,000. Hephæstion was a Macedonian and a close +and warm friend of Alexander, accompanying the young king in a military +capacity throughout most of his early foreign campaigns. So attached +was Alexander to his friend that he not only showed him many marks of +his personal esteem, but bestowed upon him in marriage Drypetis, the +sister of his own bride, Statira. At Ectabana Hephæstion was attacked +by a fever which had a fatal termination after an illness of seven +days. Alexander’s grief over the loss of his brother-in-law was violent +and extreme, and is said to have found vent in the most extravagant +demonstrations. He ordered general mourning throughout the entire +empire, and Dinocrates to build a funeral pile and monument to him in +Babylon, where the body had been conveyed from Ectabana, at a cost of +$1,000,000. + +But the richest occasion afforded Dinocrates to display to the +fullest his great talents and genius was the laying out of the city +which Alexander determined to found in Egypt, and which, bearing the +conqueror’s name, was destined to become the centre of the commercial +activity of the new empire. This great city, which rapidly grew to be +one of the most populous of ancient times, and which has maintained, if +not its original share of industrial supremacy, at least an important +existence throughout the ages that have elapsed from its nativity +to the present time, we cannot resist thinking was probably as much +the inspiration of Alexander’s favorite architect, realizing its +professional possibilities, as it was that of Alexander himself. Pliny +informs us that Dinocrates died before he could give the city the full +proportions which he had planned, but not certainly until its principal +features were executed. + +Strabo, the “squint-eyed” geographer, gives a more circumstantial +account of the planning of the new city by Dinocrates and his powerful +and ambitious patron. It must have been indeed an interesting sight +to see the two Macedonians upon the plane which was selected for the +site of the city, laying out the streets and avenues, marking the run +of the walls that were to surround it, locating the different sites +where were to stand the public buildings, parks, palaces and temples, +and perhaps disputing and arguing over the questions that arose, as two +such dominant intellects might very naturally be supposed to do. + +The basis of the plan were two main streets crossing each other at +right angles, each one hundred feet wide and lined with colonnades. The +other streets were to run parallel to these. Near the centre of the +proposed city was to be clustered the public buildings, the Museum and +the Serna, which subsequently contained an alabaster coffin in which +rested the remains of Alexander. Alabaster, which the Greeks obtained +from Thebes, was much used for mortuary purposes, as well as for +columns and statues. + +Plutarch also describes the planning of the city as follows: “As +chalk-dust was lacking, they laid out their lines on the black, loamy +soil with flour, first swinging a circle to enclose a wide space, and +then drawing lines as chords of the arc to complete with harmonious +proportions, something like the oblong form of a soldier’s cape. +While the king was congratulating himself on this plan, on a sudden a +countless number of birds of various sorts flew over from the land and +the lake in clouds, and, settling upon the spot, devoured in a short +time all the flour, so that Alexander was much disturbed in mind at the +omen involved, till the augurs restored his confidence again, telling +him the city he was planning was destined to be rich in resources and a +feeder of the nations of men,” a prophecy which proved its truth in the +fulfilment. + +Dinocrates was not, however, the only architect employed in laying +out so large a city, as might naturally be supposed, although he +was, of course, the governing one. How many more there were it would +be difficult to say, but there is record at least of two others, +both probably employed by the rapacious and unscrupulous Cleomenes, +whom Alexander left in Egypt as hyparch under Ptolemy Philadelphus. +Olynthius is the name given of one of these architects and Parmenion +of the other. The latter was entrusted more particularly with +the superintendency of the works of sculpture, especially in the +temple of Serapis, which, by the way, came to be called by his name, +Pharmenionis. Bryaxis is also credited with statuary work there. + +Upon the island of Pharos, which was joined to the city of Alexander +by a wide mole, about three-quarters of a mile long, in which were two +bridges over channels communicating between the eastern and western +harbors, was built by Ptolemy Soter and his son in the year 282 B.C., a +most famous lighthouse and a very glorious ancestor of such guardians +of the coast as exist to-day. + +This lighthouse was planned by Sostratus, another remarkable character +in the architectural roll of honor of those early times. He was a +native of Cnidus, a town in Caria in Asia Minor, to the south of Ionia +and Lydia, celebrated also as the birthplace of several other men +who rose to distinction in the early days of the Greek colonies as +mathematicians and astronomers. Cnidus was almost equally remarkable +in its possession of two famous works of the statuary’s art: one the +figure of a lion carved from a single block of Pentelic marble, ten +feet long by six feet wide, which was executed to commemorate the great +victory of Caria; the other a statue of Venus by Praxiteles, which +occupied one of the three temples to the goddess in that city. It is +said that Nicomedes of Bithynia was so fascinated by the rare beauty +of this figure that he offered to liquidate the debt of Cnidus, which +was by no means a small one, if the citizens would cede the statue to +him. They refused, however, to part with it at any price, esteeming +it one of the glories of their city. Cnidus contained many beautiful +architectural monuments, the ruins of which are still prominent. + +Sostratus, the architect, was the son of Dexiphanes, and must not be +mistaken for any one of several other artists of the same name who +are conspicuously mentioned by the early writers. His first fame was +acquired through his connection with the celebrated so-called hanging +gardens which he built in his native country. They consisted of a +series of porticos or colonnades supporting terraces, surrounding an +enclosure, possibly the Agora of the city, and served as a promenade +for the inhabitants. Pliny says that Sostratus was the first to erect +anything of the kind. This statement may be excused, either because the +hanging gardens of Sostratus differed widely from the well-known ones +of Babylon, which antedated them by several hundred years, or because +Pliny forgot for a moment those of Semiramis. + +Strabo, who was probably right in his judgment, thinks that the +greatest of Sostratus’s works was the towering lighthouse at Pharos, +which he built at a cost of about $900,000, although from its size +it would seem that it should have cost more. This colossal tower at +once took its place among the seven wonders of the ancient world. It +pierced the sky at a height of four hundred and fifty feet, or about +one hundred and seventy-five feet above the towers of the Brooklyn +Bridge and fifty feet above the torch with which the Goddess of +Liberty illuminates the harbor of New York. But its height alone was +not more marvellous than its other proportions, which were upon a +most extravagant scale. The ground story was hexagonal, the sides +alternately convex and concave, and each was one-eighth of a mile +in length. The second and third stories were each of the same form, +although decreasing in size; the fourth was square, flanked by four +round towers, and the fifth or top story was circular. A grand +staircase led through each story to the roof of the building, where +every night massive fires were lighted, revealing the sea for a hundred +miles. + +When we consider that this colossal building was made entirely of +wrought stone—when we reflect upon the amount of labor involved in its +construction, its ponderous size and dizzy altitude—we cannot but +marvel at the extraordinary breadth of conception manifested by its +architect and builders and the tenacity with which they must have held +to the completion of their huge undertaking. It is not to be wondered +at that when Sostratus stood off and contemplated this mighty product +of his imagination and genius, after its completion, he should have +been actuated with the desire to have his name associated with it for +all time, and indelibly engraved somewhere upon its imperishable stone. +The story is that Sostratus engraved an inscription upon one of the +stones which he afterward covered with cement, and on the cement he +inscribed the name of Ptolemy, knowing that in time the cement would +decay and leave exposed the hidden writing upon the stone beneath. +Strabo says that the concealed inscription read: “SOSTRATUS, THE FRIEND +OF KINGS, MADE ME;” but Lucien gives it differently, thus: “SOSTRATUS +OF CNIDUS, THE SON OF DEXIPHANES [that he might not be mistaken for any +other Sostratus, doubtless], TO THE GODS THE SAVIORS FOR THE SAFETY OF +MARINERS.” + +Pliny does not share the opinion that the inscription was a concealed +one, but speaks of the incident as a special instance of the +magnanimity of Ptolemy, that he should not only have allowed the name +of the architect to be inscribed upon the building, but that he should +have also left its nature and language to the discretion of Sostratus. +The words “Gods the Saviors,” he believes, referred to the reigning +king and queen, with their successors, who were ambitious of the title +“Soteros” or Savior. + +It would be unfair, perhaps, to the great Grecian architects of the +time of Alexander if Andronicus Cyrrhestes were to be classed among +them, and Cyrrhestes also, having been a scientific character with +a leaning toward astronomy, might with some justice feel aggrieved +were he to know that he was to be considered in a category of +professional men to which his calling was in no degree related. Still +the little building which he designed and erected in Athens is such an +interesting one, and has always held so prominent a place among the +architectural treasures of the Attic city, that it might be regarded as +an intentional oversight to leave him out in a book of this kind. Some +authorities place this building as belonging to the time of Alexander +the Great, others believe that it was erected at a later period, and +one writer gives Andronicus an existence as late as 100 B.C. + +This building, which Delambre speaks of as “the most curious existing +monument of the practical gnomonics of antiquity,” has sometimes been +called the “Tower of Æolus.” Let us see what Vitruvius has to say +regarding the winds and the building: “Some have chosen to reckon only +four winds: the East, blowing from the equinoctial sunrise; the South, +from the noonday sun; the West, from the equinoctial sun-setting; and +the North, from the Polar Stars. But those who are more exact have +reckoned eight winds, particularly Andronicus Cyrrhestes, who on this +system erected an octagon marble tower at Athens, and on every side of +the octagon he has wrought a figure in relievo, representing the wind +which blew against that side; the top of this tower he finished with +a conical marble, on which he placed a brazen Triton, holding a wand +in his hand; this Triton is so contrived that he turns with the wind, +and always stops when he directly faces it, pointing his wand over the +figure of the wind at that time blowing.” + +It is in connection with his allusion to the tower of Cyrrhestes, +and his description of how to construct a sun-dial, that Vitruvius +gives some valuable hints as to the way the ancients laid out a city +so that its streets were protected from the prevailing winds. He +says: “Let a marble slab be fixed level in the centre of the space +enclosed by the walls, or let the ground be smoothed or levelled, so +that the slab may not be necessary. In the centre of this plane, +for the purpose of marking the shadow correctly, a brazen gnomon +must be erected. The shadow cast by the gnomon is to be marked about +the fifth ante-meridional hour, and the extreme point of the shadow +accurately determined. From the central point of the space whereon the +gnomon stands, as a centre, with a distance equal to the length of +the shadow just observed, describe a circle. After the sun has passed +the meridian watch the shadow which the gnomon continues to cast till +the moment when its extremity again touches the circle which has been +described. From the two points thus obtained in the circumference of +the circle describe two arcs intersecting each other, and through +their intersection and the centre of the circle first described draw +a line to its extremity: this line will indicate the north and south +points. One-sixteenth part of the circumference of the whole circle +is to be set out to the right and left of the north and south points, +and drawing lines from the points thus obtained to the centre of the +circle, we have one-eighth part of the circumference for the region +of the north, and another eighth part for the region of the south. +Divide the remainders of the circumference on each side into three +equal parts, and the divisions or regions of the eight winds will +be obtained; then let the directions of the streets and lanes be +determined by the tendency of the lines which separate the different +regions of the winds. Thus will their force be broken and turned away +from the houses and public ways; for if the directions of the streets +be parallel to those of the winds, the latter will rush through them +with greater violence, since from occupying the whole space of the +surrounding country they will be forced up through a narrow pass. +Streets or public ways ought therefore to be so set out that when the +winds blow hard their violence may be broken against the angles of the +different divisions of the city, and thus dissipated.” + +This tower still stands a fairly well-preserved ruin, and retains many +of its original architectural features and decorations. There are +two entrances through distyle porticos, the capitals of the columns +presenting an original treatment of the Corinthian order. One of these +entrances is on the northeast side and the other on the southwest. On +the south side is a circular apsidical projection. This was probably +originally used for a reservoir to hold the water brought from the +spring Clepsydra, on the northwest of the Acropolis, which was employed +as the power to run a clepsydra, or water-clock, taking its name, +as may be inferred, from the spring. The remains of this clock are +still visible. The exterior of the building was also arranged as a +sun-clock, having lines engraved upon the different sides, with gnomons +above them, forming a series of sun-dials which indicated the time by +shadows. Thus were the people of Athens kept publicly posted as to the +time of day—by the sun when it shone, or by the water-clock when it was +obscured by clouds. + +The character of the architecture, the proportions of the building, as +well as its secular uses, were all quite out of harmony with Grecian +art and methods, and are essentially Roman. As a similar structure +existed at one time in Rome, supposed to have been built by the same +scientist, the thought is naturally suggested that Cyrrhestes may have +been a Roman. + +In closing this reference to the prominent architects of the +disintegrating period of Grecian history, it would seem that it only +remains to recall Philo, or Philon, as some of the writers have +preferred to call him, once more, who flourished about 318 B.C. As +there were several artists of his name who became conspicuous at about +the same time, our Philo will be distinguished from the others in being +a native Athenian. + +The reader will probably remember that he has been already mentioned +as the architect employed by Demetrius Phalerus, to build a portico of +twelve Doric columns to the great temple of Ceres and Proserpine at +Eleusis, originally erected by Ictinus; but his most ambitious work +was probably the armory, so called, which he designed for Lycurgus in +the Piræus, and which it is said was large enough to contain the arms +for one thousand ships. He was also engaged in enlarging the port of +Piræus, and was the architect of the white marble theatre at Athens, +which was finished by Ariobarzanes, and many years afterward rebuilt by +Hadrian. Vitruvius says that he also designed a number of Greek temples. + +Philo must have been a man of considerable versatility, for it is +related that in giving an account of his work at Piræus “he expressed +himself with such precision, purity and eloquence that the Athenian +people—excellent judges of those matters—pronounced him equally a +fluent orator and an admirable architect.” He wrote also several works +on the architecture of temples and one on the naval basin which he +constructed in the Athenian port. + + +THE END. + + + + +INDEX OF ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTORS. + + + Æacus, 27 + + Agamedes, 42, 63 + + Agnaptus, 89 + + Antimachides, 80 + + Antiphilus, 89 + + Antistates, 80 + + Apollodorus, 19, 158 + + Athenis, 87 + + + Batrachus, 162 + + Bryaxis, 140, 145, 174 + + Bupalus, 87 + + + Calleschros, 80 + + Callicrates, 105, 114 + + Callimachus, 53, 58 + + Calos (_see_ Perdix). + + Cannia, Luigi, 82 + + Celer, 155 + + Chersiphron, 38 + + Cleœtas, 133 + + Corœbus, 123 + + Cossutius, 81 + + Ctesiphon, 68 + + Cyrrhestes, Andronicus, 178 + + + Dædalus, 30 + + Damophilus, 86 + + Daphnis, 74, 77 + + Demetrius, 74, 77 + + Detrianus, 19, 160 + + Dibutades, 37 + + Dinocrates, 19, 76, 164 + + + Eupolinus, 133 + + Eurycles, 89 + + + Gaudentius (_Note_), 17 + + Gitiadas, 41 + + Gorgasus, 86 + + + Hermocreon, 89 + + Hermodorus, 163 + + Hermogenes, 55 + + Hermon, 89 + + Hippodamus, 105 + + + Icarus, 32 + + Ictinus, 19, 107, 114, 123 + + + Lacrates, 89 + + Leochares, 140, 146 + + Libon, 82, 84 + + + Megacles, 89 + + Menalippus, 127 + + Metagenes, 68, 124 + + Mnesicles, 19, 112, 128 + + Mutianus, 76 + + Myrilla, Democopus, 133 + + + Olynthius, 173 + + + Parmenion, 173 + + Peonius, 74, 77 + + Perdix, 31, 36 + + Phileus, 140 + + Phidias, 13, 85, 90, 98, 115, 131 + + Philo, 123, 182 + + Philocles, 121 + + Polycletus, 13, 131 + + Polycritus, 37 + + Porinus, 80 + + Pothæus, 89 + + Praxiteles, 13, 74, 136, 144 + + Pteras, 37 + + Pyrrhus, 89 + + Pytheus, 57 + + + Rhœcus, 19, 38 + + + Satyrus, 140 + + Saurus, 162 + + Scopas, 58, 74, 136 + + Severus, 155 + + Silenus, 133 + + Smilis, 38 + + Sostratus, 174 + + Spintharus, 65 + + Stallius, Caius, 127 + + Stallius, Marius, 127 + + + Talos (_see_ Perdix). + + Tarchesius, 57 + + Theodorus, 19, 38, 70 + + Timotheus, 140, 146 + + Trophonius, 42, 63 + + + Vitruvius, 20, 49, 68, 71, 79, 83, 164, 170 + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + pg 25 Changed: The Cyclopses, who belonged to Pelasgic times + to: The Cyclopes, who belonged to Pelasgic times + + pg 91 Changed: breaking out of the Poloponnesian war + to: breaking out of the Peloponnesian war + + pg 105 Changed: Hippodamus was one of the genuises of his day + to: Hippodamus was one of the geniuses of his day + + pg 113 Changed: and which yas called Splanchnoptes + to: and which was called Splanchnoptes + + pg 161 Changed: his professional acchievements was the removing + to: his professional achievements was the removing + + pg 172 Changed: which the Greks obtained from Thebes + to: which the Greeks obtained from Thebes + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75561 *** |