DIANA'S TEMPLE AT EPHESUS. "London has long possessed the finest collection of both the larger and smaller works of art from Greece and Asia Minor, but Lord Elgin could not carry off Homer's sun, rocks, and seas."-BAEDEKER'S "GREECE." INTRODUCTION. IT is impossible to understand any architecture from books alone, and this may be even especially true of the great works of Greek art, for they are not so much seen immediately as through a veil of traditional explanations, commentaries, and theories which are probably in great part a formal grammar applied long after the time when the architecture flourished as a living language. The British Museum, which is the richest collection of representative fragments of great classical buildings in the world, furnishes us with an invaluable means for looking directly at, and measuring the very stones wrought by Greek artists. In it are stored large and significant fragments of the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, the Propylaea, the Temple of Niké Apteros, and of that which once stood by the Ilissus—all in Athens; of the great Temple of Diana at Ephesus, and of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the two most famous buildings of Asia Minor; also of the Temples of Bassae and Priene, and of several important tombs, from the prehistoric work of Mycenae to the late Nereid monument brought from Xanthus. Of these, the Temple of Diana and the Mausoleum can only be properly studied in the Museum, which contains practically all the wrought stones of them which have ever been discovered. I propose first to examine the Temple of Diana. The several phases of architecture are usually classified as Antique and Classical, or Medieval and Gothic. We are apt A to accept the idea that there is some opposition in these, but this is not necessarily the case, although, of course, there is diversity. In a large degree all architecture is one, in that it is the work of men shaping materials according to their powers and desires; Greek and Gothic architecture resemble one another in both being what I may call primary styles; while Roman art in much, and Renaissance art still more, were consciously derived, and are secondary. THE DISCOVERY. BEFORE the discovery by Mr Wood of the long-buried site, the Temple of Diana was chiefly known by its reputation as one of the Seven Wonders of the world, and from a few short notices by ancient writers. According to Vitruvius, it was Ionic, dipteral, octastyle, and had a cedar ceiling. Pliny says that it was of the enormous and impossible size of 425 feet by 220 feet, that it had 127 columns, the gifts of kings, and thirty-six which were sculptured. Falkener, by the publication of his work on Ephesus in 1862, in which he brought together many of the references to the temple contained in the ancient books and offered a conjectural restoration, must have generated the interest which led to a search for the site being undertaken in the following year by J. T. Wood. It was not until 1870 that the site was identified, and as the plain on which the temple was built had been covered by some 15 feet of alluvial deposit, and not one stone remained above-ground, the discovery was a triumph for what long seemed a forlorn hope. He was helped by an inscription now in the British Museum, which shows that the temple was outside the Magnesian Gate. In 1877 Mr Wood published his popular account, restoring the plan from indications found, as having eight columns at the ends, twenty on the flanks of the outer row, and one hundred in all. In the accounts collected by Falkener the temple is said to have been rebuilt many times, but in the main remnants of only an earlier and a later building were discovered, and I shall call them the Old and New Temples. Wood speaks of the "last temple," "the last temple but one," and "the last temple but two," but the only remains he assigned to the middle one were those of a pavement intermediate between the higher and the lower levels. As the site was very low, a raising of the floor was quite likely to have taken place, and we need not infer from it a rebuilding of the temple. The site was practically a marsh, as had been remarked by Pliny. The Austrian survey referred to below shows the floor of the Old Temple 2.70 metres above the sea-level, the New Temple 5.42 metres, and the modern surface 9 metres. (Fig. 1.) The remains of the Old Temple were of midsixth century work, and, doubtless, belonged to the temple to which Croesus contributed. The later temple was of the fourth century, and probably was not completed until after the visit of Alexander to Ephesus in 334. We may call them the temples of Croesus and of Alexander. The site was outside the city to the east at the foot of a range of hills which rose near the back of the east front. The west portico faced the city and the harbour, and possibly for this reason became the chief entrance contrary -to the usual custom. It must have been the nature of the site which led to the elevation of the New Temple upon a platform reached by many steps. In building the new structure the old work was only taken down to below the level of this platform; even the bases and stumps of the old columns were left. These were built round about with new foundations, and the cella walls were increased at the sides. The new foundations thus contained a core of the old building, and both were discovered together. The two temples were identical in size and general disposition of parts. THEORIES OF RECONSTRUCTION. In 1884 Fergusson worked over Wood's materials, which had been inadequately published, with the object of showing that places should be found for 127 columns as mentioned by Pliny ; and, for this purpose, extended the plan by two or three bays. He had already suggested, from an examination of the marbles in the British Museum soon after they were received, that the square sculptured blocks which Wood had thought were parts of the frieze formed pedestals for the sculptured columns. (Fig. 3.) As there were more than four angle pieces among these blocks it was shown that they could not have belonged to the frieze. The best result of this paper was that it led to a reply from Mr Wood in which he gave additional and much more workmanlike data with a plan of what was actually found, and sections of the steps and platform. (Figs. 2 and 14.) This plan also contained facts obtained in a further examination of the site made in 1883-4. The walls of the cella were here completely traced, with the basis for the great image in the midst. The foundation of one of the antæ and of one column on each side are accurately laid down. Further, large portions of great retaining walls which supported the platform are shown on both sides, with cross walls. exactly opposite the columns dividing the platform into a network of walls (it was so also at Pergamos), and giving a columniation of 17 feet 1 inch along the flanks. At one end, however, two bays of 19 feet 4 inches were found, and at the other end, and in the right place in regard to the antæ, the first of a similar pair of bays was found. It was evident that the two bays at each end were made wider in preparation for the very wide columniation of the fronts. Long portions of the bottom step of those which surrounded the 'platform were found in situ on one * See R.I.B.A. Journal, 1883-4. + Newton's "Essays," 1880; "Ionian Antiq.,” vol. iv.; and Dr Murray's Hist. of Sculpt." From R.I.B.A. Journal, 1883-4. Reproduced by permission. side and one end. The supplementary facts given in this paper were enough to prove that there were twenty columns on the flanks (outer row) and Working over the evidence has convinced me that the network of walls. spoken of supported a raised platform reached by continuous flights of steps, surrounding the colonnade. Wood says that he ascertained that the inner row of columns had no square plinths. * In his MS. letters at the British Museum, Wood, in 1873, says: "We have come across a short length of step at the east end, of the same width as the side step. . . it is 116 feet from the centre of the column in situ on the north side." |