It is difficult to fix the exact period when architecture in Greece may be said to have reached the condition of art. In fact it is impossible to do so now, as it is evident that every department of art is perfected by slow degrees; and many must have toiled in Greece as builders before the minds of workmen began to recognize the forms and members of edifices which were worthy of adoption, and which in time became stereotyped into a particular style. Even in the time of Homer, the builders of his age had not adopted a uniformity of style. With Homer, style is not so much a matter of importance as material and magnitude, for he attaches far more importance to the polished stones of the palace of Alcinous than he does to its style or form. Little is known of the buildings of this early period, the principal remains being circular walls around the sites of primitive towns and palaces, showing a peculiar arrangement of stones known as Cyclopean. These remains may still be seen in Greece, in Southern Italy and in Sardinia, as the Greeks carried their habits with them into their different colonies. In these buildings the stones are not laid in courses, but in their natural shapes they are piled on each other, and by means of smaller stones the interstices are up so that the wall presents a regularly compacted external surface. A later style may be seen in which courses have been adopted, but in both filled VOL. VIII.-12 these periods there is an absence of mortar, and the antiquity of both is obvious to all spectators, as their rudeness indicates the work of an early age. The Doric order was doubtless the earliest of the Greek styles, but no reliable testimony can be found that will settle the period of its adoption. THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS. It has been held that at an early age an influence from Mesopotamia had reached Greece, and as a result, an Eastern mode of ornamentation began to extend; but on the settlement of the Dorians, who brought with them a refined and critical taste, the elaboration of the East gave way to the chaste simplicity and grandeur subsequently developed in the Doric style. The name has led some to enter other parts of Greece, and that in consequence of its great simplicity and the striking harmony of its parts it rapidly spread among the founders of the temples which were erected in other parts of Greece. The earliest remains in this style are at Corinth, and the only difference between the structures of the primitive and the later builders is to be found in the proportion of the members, the columns in the older édifices being only four times their diameter in height. It is almost certain that the Doric attained to the condition of a style before the Ionic was perfected. It has never been settled, and cannot now be determined whether the Ionic style originated in Greece and was carried over the Ægean into Asia, or among the Ionians themselves. At any rate it is certain that in Ionia it assumed a form of delicacy and beauty which formed a marked contrast with the heavier and sterner Doric; and it is no wonder that among the Greeks, to whom beauty of form adopted in Greece. The third style, that of the Corinthian, is traced to Callimachus, who is said to have introduced the leaves of the acanthus into the capital, and thus produced the luxuriant form of that order. The tale is well known which records the adoption of this florid style by Callimachus. A nurse who mourned over the death of a young girl, had carried a number of things to her grave in a basket which she covered with a tile. The basket had been placed on an acanthus plant which grew up, the leaves expanding gracefully, and those at the corners of the tile embraced it in the form of "volutes," thus presenting an object of rare beauty. The appearance of the basket and the leaves suggested to Callimachus AN EARLIER CORINTHIAN CAPITAL. the idea of a graceful capital, which he adopted, and as it was at Corinth that the incident occurred, the style thus completed took its name from that city. Unfortunately this somewhat graceful tale has no foundation in fact. Before proceeding farther it may be well to draw the attention of the non-architectural reader to an accompanying ground plan (page 180), which will show the usual forms of Greek temples, the position of the columns in the different styles, and the scientific terms by which they were known: A temple in Antis had two columns on the entrance end, while the ends of the flank walls terminated on a line with the columns, and thus the pediment or apex of the gable was supported on them. The Monopteral building had no cell or chamber, and but one row of columns, whether life, and the monuments which aggrandized the the building was circular or not. In the Prostyle State, were evidences of the greatness of the indi vidual. On the other hand, in modern times, society aims at the welfare of the individual and the family. In Egypt and in Greece families and individuals lived for the State, and A FLORID CORINTHIAN CAPITAL. form, the columns of the portico stood in advance | hence it has come The The beginning of the sixth century before Christ has been recognized as the period when the Doric and Ionic orders were fully developed, and many buildings were erected about this time, among the most important being the temples of Olympic Zeus or Jupiter at Athens, of Apollo at Delphi, both being of the Doric order, and the temple of Diana at Ephesus, in the Ionic style. Temples were raised in the different States of Greece in great numbers during this period, and the little republics vied with each other in their efforts to display their culture and their wealth. No efforts were spared to provide adequate means for erecting these costly monuments, for the condition of society then was such that all the people lived for the support and glory of the national zen not even a fragment remains. Rulers, artists and priests combined to extend the enthusiasm of the people, which spread to the islands in the Egean sea, and extended to all the towns and cities in Asia, as well as to the Greek colonies in lower STANDING AT EPHESUS. In Antis. Pseudo Dipteral. Monopteral. Prostyle. Dipteral tage, two farm-houses, a villa and a church. The remaining space is covered with thick matted grass, overgrown with brambles spreading over the ruins or buried under vellow undulating corn. A few rosebushes flourish neglected here and there and still blossom twice a year, in May and December, as if to support their ancient fame, and jastify the descriptions of the poets. Amid these objects and scenes, rural and ordinary, rise the three temples, like the mausoleum of the ruined city, dark, silent and majestic." That the Greek colony in southern Italy had erected such edifices as these is an ample demonstration In these lands some of the most famous of all front, and that eighteen stood on each side, has the structures of that age still remain. Pæstum led to the conclusion that that the edifice was a in Southern Italy was founded five hundred colonnade, roofed over, but open on either side. years B.C, and shortly after the building of The greatness of Pæstum may be judged by these the city the vast temples were commenced which ruins. While, as Eustace, in his "Classical Tour," still remain, though considerably dilapidated, and has said, in allusion to the city, its walls, and the which attest the boldness of design, the command scene around, "within these walls that once encir of enormous resources, and the advanced culture cled a populous and splendid city, now rise one cotof the people who erected these great structures. At Pæstum (originally Posidonia, now Pesto), which lies in a plain adjoining the Gulf of Salerno, on the west coast, the remains of the great Doric temples still form the chief attraction to the educated traveller, after leaving Naples and Vesuvius. One of these, dedicated to Neptune, is a hypethral building about two hundred feet long by eighty feet broad. Architecturally it is described as hexastyle and peripteral, having fourteen columns on each side, and six on each end. In the thickness of the wall which separates the inner portico from the body of the temple are steps which lead to the roof. The roof extends along two sides of the building, the centre being open or hypethral, and the roofs on either side form a gallery and a roof. Thus, at the height of the level of the walls is a gallery running along the two sides of the building, and supported by columns placed eight feet from the walls. Above this gallery is another set of columns reaching up to the highest point of the sloping roof. Another temple remains, which is hexastyle and peripteral, having thirteen columns on each flank. It is over one hundred, feet long by about fifty feet wide, the columns being somewhat more than four feet in diameter and about twenty feet high. Another structure remains, the walls being gone; but a basement of one hundred and eighty feet long by eighty feet broad, showing that Doric columns ran along the Amphi Prostyle. Hypathral. C Peripteral. PLANS OF GREEK TEMPI FS. Peripterul. of the fact that their civilization had attained a wonderful degree of culture, of wealth, and of public spirit; and yet, imposing as these temples were, they yield to others that the Greeks in Sicily had raised in several of their settlements. At Agrigentum, on the Southern coast, the fragments of walls and works in the basement remain of a temple which was undoubtedly one of the most imposing that even the magnificence and energy of antiquity had aimed at founding, D. scriptions of the temple exist, and from these and from the researches of modern architects it is known that this building was about three hundred and seventy feet in length, a hundred and eighty in breadth, and a hundred and twenty in heigat to the top of the portico, while the columns were upwards of sixty feet high. It was a Doric afteral temple; that is, the columns on the flank had the spaces between them filled in with walls, and this and they supported another massive establature at was done, no doubt, because the spaces between the the height of a hundred and ten feet from the columns being thirty feet, no stones could be found long enough to reach from column to column to form an architrave. The columns were of the enormous di ameter of thir teen feet, and about half of their thickness projected out of the wall. The stones used for the capitals were twenty tons in weight, and on the inside of the walls were TEMPLE OF MINERVA, AT CORINTH. flat pillars or pilasters twelve feet broad, correspond-, ground. Such were the leading features of this ing in place with the pillars outside. Internally temple erected by a people who were said to have the area was divided into three parallel longitudinal portions, resembling the nave and aisles of a Gothic church, the central division being loftier and wider than the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral TEMPLE OF JUPITER (RESTORED) AT ÆGINA. in London. Right and left on the walls of this have were sculptured figures twenty-five feet high, "built as if they were to live forever, and who feasted as if they were to die on the morrow." Elsewhere in Sicily a similar loftiness of conception and affluence of means enabled the Greeks to vie with the inhabitants of Agrigentum. Thus, at Selinus, on the south coast, the remains of a temple supposed to have been dedicated to Jupiter Olynipus, are of gigantic proportions. Three temples appear to have been erected on the hill on which this vast structure stood. The length was about three hundred and thirty feet, the breadth about one hundred and sixty-five feet, and it had seventeen columns on each flank, the style being Doric and hypæethral or open to the air in the roof. Turning to Greece proper, it is well known that art attained the summit of its perfection after the close of the Persian war. When peace had been established, the necessity of rebuilding Athens became obvious, and thus moral and social causes combined to produce the number of splendid temples and other edifices which at Athens and elsewhere were erected. Liberty, love of country, and ambition, had raised Athens to be an acknow |