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Greek Temples The Temples at Paestum, in Southern Italy. Poseidonia, called Paestum by the Romans, was a colony of Sybaris, founded c. 524. Of its three Doric temples that of Poseidon (6 × 14, built about 450) is by far the finest, rivalling the Parthenon and the 'Concordia' in its splendid proportions. The so-called 'Basilica' is unusually broad (9 × 18). It is perhaps more ancient, but the architecture is not so perfect. It was divided down the middle by columns, the two portions having probably been sacred to different deities. The temple of Demeter, as it is called, is less massive than the Poseidon temple, and the columns have an exaggerated entasis, but it is a splendid ruin. The Heraion (Temple of Hera), at Olympia. Doric: 6 × 16. Built perhaps c. 900. The stone foundations (probably the most ancient relic of a Greek temple extant) were originally surmounted by walls of sunburnt brick and wooden pillars. Stone columns were gradually substituted, which accounts for the fact that, to judge from the remains of thirty-six of the columns and of twenty capitals, they were almost all different. Pausanias saw one old wooden pillar still remaining. Nothing has been found of an entablature, frieze, &c. The Hermes of Praxiteles was found in this temple, buried in the clay of the sunburnt bricks. Ruins of Temple of Apollo, Greece Photographic Print Buy at AllPosters.com Temple of Apollo, Corinth. Doric: 6 × 15. Probably built by Periander, c. 600. Seven monolith columns of rough limestone, originally overlaid with yellowish stucco, still stand and bear a part of the architrave. They are finely profiled, with a noticeable entasis, but are shorter than usual in proportion to the thickness, the height (23 1/2 feet)being only 7 2/3 modules (semi-diameters), and the capitals are remarkably massive. Temple of Apollo, Delphi. Built to replace the ancient temple, burnt down in 548. The architect was Spintheros of Corinth. A fourth of the expense was to be borne by the Treasury of Delphi, and the rest was raised by subscription through all Hellas (even Amasis of Egypt contributed). But the Alcmaeonidae undertook the construction (thus probably saving the Treasury much expense), and carried it out in a more splendid manner than was stipulated in the contract, using Parian marble in many parts instead of poros or tufa. The remains show that the columns were of white tufa coated with stucco, and that the outer colonnades were Doric and the inner Ionic. The pediments contained figures of Apollo and other deities and the nine Muses. To the architrave were attached golden shields, offerings of the Athenians after the battle of Marathon. In the vestibule were engraved the sayings of the Seven Sages--e.g. "Know thyself," &c. Temple of Athene (or Aphaia), Aegina, in the northeastern corner of the island. Doric: 6 × 12. Built perhaps before 500. The pediment sculptures were erected probably soon after the battle of Salamis. Twenty-two columns are still standing, bearing the entablature. They are of yellow limestone covered with stucco. The sculptures of the pediments were discovered in 1811, and bought by the Crown Prince of Bavaria. They were restored and reconstructed by Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, and are preserved in the Glyptothek at Munich. An inscription excavated in 1901 seems to show that the temple was sacred to Aphaia, a "local goddess with affinities to Artemis." Temples at Selinus and Acragas (Sicily). The remains of seven ancient Doric colonnaded temples, some of great size, built probably soon after the foundation of the city, c. 628, are to be seen at Selinus, in South-western Sicily, where a wilderness of enormous ruins covers the acropolis and an adjacent hill. The greatest of these temples, called the Apollonion, was almost as large as the huge Olympieion at Acragas, and was, similarly, not finished when the city was taken by the Carthaginians in 409. Some of the still unfinished column drums are to be seen in a quarry three miles distant. The most ancient of the Selinus temples had the unusual proportions 6 × 17. Many of its huge columns are lying in a row side by side, just as they fell when a great earthquake (it is not known when) overthrew all the temples of Selinus and some at Acragas. Some very ancient metopes from the frieze of this temple are preserved at Palermo. At Acragas (Lat. Agrigentum, Ital. Girgenti) many splendid temples were erected by Thero after the victory over the Carthaginians at Himera in 480. A portion of the still older Athene temple is yet to be seen forming a part of a church inside the city, but the temples erected by Thero lined the south city wall, and from their lofty plateau overlooked the sea. Of these the unfinished Olympieion was the greatest Greek temple in existence, as its widespread ruins testify. The magnificent 'Concordia' temple (Doric: 6 × 13) is one of the finest and most perfect Greek temples extant ( Fig. 76 ), and the so-called temple of Lacinian Hera (also 6 × 13), of which many columns still stand on an elevated site, is one of the most impressive of all ruins. The name 'Concordia' is due to a Latin inscription which has nothing to do with the temple, and the 'Lacinian' temple got its name from a mistake made by Pliny, who states that Zeuxis painted for Agrigentum a picture of Helen of Troy, whereas it was painted for the temple of Hera on the Lacinian promontory. The Ruins of the Apollo Temple at Didyma Photographic Print Buy at AllPosters.com Temple of Apollo at Didyma (now Hieronda), near Miletus, called the Temple of the Branchidae, who were the priestly family in charge. It was famed for its antiquity and wealth and for its oracle. The original temple perhaps dated from the early days of Ionian migration (say about 1000). In 603, before the battle of Carchemish, Pharaoh Necho presented his cuirass to the temple. Also Croesus made costly golden offerings ( Hdt. i. 92). The building was plundered and burnt by the Persians after the capture of Miletus in 494 (possibly without the consent of Darius, who, as a letter of his to the satrap of Ionia proves, felt great reverence for this oracle of Apollo). The Branchidae were accused of having surrendered the temple and treasure, and to save them from the vengeance of the Ionians Xerxes transplanted them to Sogdiana (Turkestan), not far from Lake Aral, where they founded a Greek town, some 2000 miles distant from Miletus. But about 170 years later Alexander, when greeted on his victorious campaign by this little Greek colony, revived the accusation and massacred every man, woman, and child--one of the foulest deeds that his insanity perpetrated. The Branchidae temple was rebuilt in the age of Alexander, and probably by his orders, and was said to be the greatest Greek temple in Asia Minor--so great that it could not be roofed! Some of the magnificent Ionic columns are still standing, buried to a third of their height, which is said to be 60 feet. But by far the most ancient relics of Didyma are some of the great seated figures which lined the 'sacred way' from the temple to the sea (about two miles). These date from about 550. Several are in the British Museum. Temple of Artemis, Ephesus --about a mile north-east from the ancient city. The first temple was burnt by the Cimmerians about 678. The second, which during the siege of Ephesus by Croesus was attached to the city by a rope, was finished during his reign and received many gifts from him, including the sculptured drums of some of the columns, one of which is in the British Museum. The huge Ionic front columns rested, it is thought, on great square blocks which brought their shaft bases on a level with the floor of the temple, and these blocks, as well as the lowest drums of the columns, were decorated with bas-reliefs. This second temple--the only Greek temple spared by Xerxes--was burnt down (by Herostratus--merely, it is said, in order to perpetuate his name!) on the very night when Alexander the Great was born ( 356). The third was begun at once and finished about 300. Alexander offered (c. 334) to bear the whole expense if he were allowed to have the fact recorded by an inscription; but his offer was declined with the rather clever excuse that "it was not meet for one deity to build a temple to another." (No such scruples seem to have deterred Croesus!) This third Ephesian temple was a copy of the second, but on a more magnificent scale, and was the largest temple of the Greek world. It was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders, and continued in use till the abolition of paganism. Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia, or Bassae ('The Ravines,' a village near Phigaleia, in Arcadia), stands on a fine site among mountainous solitudes. It was probably built to enclose an ancient shrine of Apollo Epikouros ('the Helper'), and was, says Pausanias, erected in hope of averting the Great Plague of 430--and seemingly not in vain, for Thucydides says the disease did not spread to the Peloponnese. The architect was Ictinus, who built the Parthenon. It is Doric, 6 × 15, but the inner temple had ten Ionic and one Corinthian column (now lost). What is unusual, it faces north and south; but the inmost shrine (probably the ancient sanctuary around which the temple was built) had its door to the east, so that the image of the god faced the rising sun. The great bronze statue of Apollo was taken by Megalopolis. It was replaced by a marble statue, of which fragments, as well as twenty-three tablets of the frieze, are in the British Museum. In spite of earthquakes about thirty of the thirty-eight external columns are standing. The Temple of Segesta. The Sicilian city of Segesta (Greek Egesta) was situate in the mountainous north-west coast of Sicily. It was originally the chief city of the Sicilian Elymi, who had a town and a great temple on Mount Eryx, a promontory some 2000 feet above the sea, dedicated to Aphrodite (or rather to Astarte, the Phoenician goddess). But Greek influence afterwards prevailed, as is testified by a magnificent Doric temple that now stands in majestic solitude among the hills, not far from the ancient site of Egesta. Its columns are of rough stone without flutings, and the fact that they were never finished gives us a clue to the date of the temple. The cessation of the work was probably due to the troubles caused (about 410) by the quarrel between Segesta and Selinus, which ended in Segesta calling on Carthage for aid and in the destruction of Selinus and the establishment of Carthaginian supremacy in Western Sicily. Temple of Hera Lacinia, near Croton. One solitary column remains of this great Doric temple, built probably about 480-450 to replace the ancient temple which was for centuries the first landmark that greeted the Greek on his way to the far West. Here he generally landed and made sacrifice. The marble-roofed temple was surrounded by pine-groves where were erected statues of Olympic victors. It was the assembly-place of the Greeks of Greater Hellas, and festivals were celebrated here, with athletic games. It possessed great riches--amongst other things a pillar of gold and a picture of Helen by Zeuxis. Hannibal here slaughtered 2000 Italian mercenaries and put up a brass tablet (used by Polybius) to recount his victories. In A.D. 1600 the temple was still almost intact, but was demolished by a bishop, Lucifero by name. Two columns were left. One was overthrown by earthquake in 1638. Temple of Hera at Samos. Of this, the greatest Greek temple known to Herodotus, only one Ionic column remains. It stands not far from the sea-shore about four miles from the ancient city of Samos. The temple was finished by Polycrates and burnt by the Persians, but rebuilt in the time of Herodotus. The Parthenon is regarded as the ideal of Doric architecture. For details as to its proportions, its sculptures, &c. The Erechtheion is in a depression on the north side of the Acropolis plateau. It stood incomplete for many years and was finished (as proved by an inscription in the British Museum) c. 409. It is considered a model of Ionic style, but is of very unusual form, being as different from the ordinary Greek temple as San Vitale is from the ordinary Christian basilica. It is only about 66 feet long, and has two side porches, as well as the eastern portico. The southern of these porches is that of the 'Maidens' or Caryatides (one of these Maidens is of terra-cotta, the original being in the British Museum). The unusual form of the building was evidently occasioned by the fact that it included several distinct old Ionian (Athenian) shrines--that of Erechtheus and that of Athene Polias and perhaps others. Erechtheus, the old Athenian snake-hero-god, was identified with Poseidon, and in early times shared with Athene the 'house of Erechtheus' (mentioned by Homer). The lair of his snake, and the hole made by Poseidon's trident in the rock, and the olive planted by Athene, were all shown in the old Erechtheion, which was burnt by the Persians in 480. Athene's olive thereupon put out a long new shoot within two days, and the new temple was promptly taken in hand. The question of the old site is puzzling, for between the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, and almost contiguous to it, have been discovered the foundations of the ancient temple of Athene Polias (the 'Hecatompedos,' the 'hundredfoot' temple, built, or more probably turned into a Doric temple, by Peisistratus). If, as some assert, this old temple was rebuilt on the same site after the Persian invasion the Caryatid porch could not have been erected without making a breach in the wall of the new building, and thus utterly ruining the view of the porch and forming a most ugly and ridiculous complex. It is easier to believe that the Erechtheion replaced this old temple (whose site was left unused), and that it also included the ancient shrines in the precinct. The Theseion, the best preserved of all ancient (Greek temples, stands on an elevation north-west of the Acropolis. It is smaller than the Parthenon (i.e. 6 x 13), and the columns of Pentelic marble are somewhat slenderer. The sculptures of the pediments have entirely disappeared. Only the metopes on the east front, and four of the adjoining fields on each side, were sculptured. These eighteen reliefs represent the labours of Heracles and of Theseus, and the frieze of the sanctuary (which, as in the Parthenon, is continuous, like an Ionic frieze) depicts the contest of Centaurs and Lapithae, in which Theseus had a part. It seems, therefore, very probable that the temple is, as till lately has been universally believed, the building in which Cimon deposited the bones of Theseus. But because Pausanias seems to ignore it and speaks of a temple of Hephaestus, and because the architecture seems to be as late as that of the Parthenon, some writers have asserted that it cannot be Cimon's 'Theseion.' The Olympieion at Athens was begun (about 530) by Peisistratus ( Thuc. ii. 15). This original temple was Doric. It was planned on such a vast scale that at the height of her power Athens never ventured to complete it. Aristotle mentions it as a "work of despotic grandeur." In the year 174 Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, undertook to finish it. The fifteen huge Corinthian columns still standing (56 1/2 feet high) may date from this period. Sulla ( 85 B.C.) when he plundered Athens carried off some of the smaller (Doric?) columns. Augustus forwarded the work (described by Livy as the "only temple on earth worthy of the greatness of the god"), but it was not finished until the reign of Hadrian ( A.D. 120). It had 100 columns and was 353 1/2 feet in length. Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Built c. 470 by the people of Elis from the spoils of Pisa, which they had destroyed a century before (c. 572, when they finally won from the Pisatans the supremacy in the games). It was a Doric temple (6 x 13), 210 feet long, with a sanctuary, aisled by two rows of columns, containing the famous statue by Pheidias of Zeus Olympios. Many of the columns and some capitals are still to be seen, lying where they fell when overthrown by earthquake. For the sculptures of pediments and the statue of Zeus, &c., see Chapter VI, Section A. Temple of Athene on Sunion. Cape Sunion (Lat. Sunium), now Cape Colonna, is the steep promontory, about 200 feet high, in which Attica terminates. The earliest temple on 'sacred Sunion,' as Homer calls it, was dedicated to Poseidon (at least Aristophanes calls Poseidon "the god invoked on Sunion"), but, as at Athens, the sea-god was forced to share his shrine with Athene (or possibly to allow his shrine to be overshadowed by her larger temple). Eleven Doric columns of Laurion marble still stand. The temple was like the Theseion, but somewhat smaller, and was built about the same time. Some very weather-worn sculptured metopes possibly once depicted the feats of Theseus. Temple of Athene Nike (i.e. Athene in her character as Victory), sometimes wrongly called the temple of 'Wingless Victory,' is a small early Ionic shrine (only 27 x 18 feet) of Pentelic marble, with a portico of four columns at each end. It was built on an elevated platform of rock to the right of the Propylaea, as one ascends, probably after the original great plan of the Propylaea had been given up (i.e. during the Peloponnesian War, c. 425). In 1684 it was entirely demolished by the Turks, who used the material to build a bastion. In 1835 the fragments were carefully collected and the shrine was reconstructed. Home