The architecture of Greece & Rome; a sketch of its historic development

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF GREECE AND ROME

Preface

To the late William J. Anderson, of Glasgow, is due the conception of this work. The course of lectures which, on the invitation of the Governors of the School of Art in that city, he delivered in 1893-94 on the Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy (published in 1896), was followed in 1896-97 by a course on the History and Development of Greek Architecture. To this subject he devoted his studies for three years, repeating his course with various revisions, and adding to it in 1897 three additional lectures on Roman Architecture, which, with those on Greek, he intended to publish as his second work Immediately following these Roman lectures he continued, in 1898, with a course which included the various styles down to the present day, and in the winter of 1898-99 a further special course dealing with the Renaissance in France.

The preparation of these courses would seem to have interfered with the studies he intended to devote to Roman Architecture in order to bring them in line with the Greek. There is no doubt that he had attained a masterly grasp of the principles underlying Greek work, more particularly those dealing with the Archaic and culminating periods, the study of which would seem to have had a special attraction for him. It was his intention to deal with Roman work in the same way, and with that in view, and being in indifferent health, he expressed the desire that I, who had been in frequent communication with him respecting the various courses he had delivered, should undertake to read and see through the press the chapters on Greek Architecture (for which, as well as for the Roman, numerous illustrations had already been prepared), so as to give him more time to devote to those on Roman Architecture. He died, vi

PREFACE.

however, before this intention was realised, and the whole work was then placed in my hands by Mr. Batsford with the entire concurrence of Mr. Anderson's widow.

With some slight modifications in their order, and some condensation in Chapter IV., the first four chapters are Mr. Anderson's work, as are also some passages in the others; but for the descriptions of the monuments in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters on Greek Architecture, for the Etruscan, and for the whole of the Roman Architecture, I am entirely responsible.

The seven lectures on Greek Architecture which Mr. Anderson delivered in 1897 had been condensed by him into five, so as to include Roman in his course, and the fifth lecture and those on Etruscan and Roman were only in the form of notes sufficient for the purpose of his lecture, but impossible for me to follow.

As the chronological sequence which Mr. Anderson had adopted in his description of Greek work could not be adhered to in dealing with Roman, owing to the immense diversity of buildings which had to be described, it was decided to class them according to their destination or purpose.

An endeavour has been made in the chapters on Roman Architecture to point out some of the principles which guided the Roman architect in the setting-out of his plan — principles which form the basis of the studies in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and have been handed down from generation to generation since the foundation of the School by Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV., towards the close of the seventeenth century. The shortcomings in this attempt, by no means an easy task, have, it is hoped, been partially met by the publication of some of the plans worked out by the French students in the Villa Medicis in Rome, and although these, in some cases, may not archaeologically be always quite reliable, they follow the principles of design in the setting-out of the plan to which we have referred, and may enable the student to grasp these principles better than he could have done from the descriptions alone.

PREFACE.

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In parts of the work there are some theories put forward which have not yet obtained universal acceptance ; but one of the objects has been to stimulate the student's interest in the subject, with the hope that, by independent research, he may ascertain for himself, either among the treasures of the British and other Museums, or in the numerous publications cited in the Bibliography, how far those theories can be substantiated.

In dealing with the nomenclature which should be adopted, more particularly with the chapters on Greek Architecture, some difficulty has been experienced in deciding whether the Greek or Roman name should be attached to either the temple or monument described. As a rule, the name by which the deity, temple, or monument is best known has been adopted.

R. PHENE SPIERS.

London,

September, 1902.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I.— THE MYCEN^AN AGE IN GREECE i

II.— THE ARCHAIC PERIOD IN EUROPEAN HELLAS . 18

CHAPTER I. THE MYCENjBAN AGE IN GREECE

That works of architecture as things of man's creating are inferior in interest, in excellence of design and perfection of workmanship, to the humblest of Nature's works outside humanity, has often been the burden of the moralising of theologian, naturalist, and astronomer. But in this reflection lies a fallacy which is fully exposed to those who can discern in the successive intellectual works of man the path of the human spirit, and who regard them as manifestations of Nature, of which he forms a part. Mysterious and impressive the instinct which causes the bird, the beaver, the insect engineer, to build for their material needs ; astonishing the variety and intricacy of the results within the limits of the type. But the work of man is infinitely more complex in its nature, more profound in its meaning. A spiritual element marks it off from the work of animals : it is here that architecture begins. Building whose end and aim is the fulfilment of material wants remains building, and whatever be the nature of the material want, differs in no essential from the work of the lower animals ; but if to this

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be added an element of aspiration involving the exercise of a higher kind of design, there is the distinction that makes the difference. The blackbird in early spring builds a nest of a different type from that which the swallow will build later ; and in a way analogous the yellow man built differently from the white man who succeeded him : and in certain respects the artistic instincts of the Celt may be distinguishable from those of the Teuton ; but above and beyond this racial expression there is embodied in the architectural work of man a spiritual striving after the unattainable corresponding to the progress of this never-resting civilisation, every aspect of which — every habit, belief, and aspiration — it has power to reflect and symbolise. Works of architecture in themselves are material, perishable, incomplete; but a style of architecture is one of the higher manifestations of Nature, reaching in through the human spirit. That architecture can fail in interest, as compared with the works of Nature which lie outside humanity, is not for lack of the elements of interest, but because of the greater complexity which enters into its nature, and which makes it more than difficult to grasp its full significance.

But should we try to grasp as a whole one great period of architecture, one great style of art like that of Greece, our study is simplified in finding it present all the features of a natural growth. Art is a flower, and, like the flower of the field, is sown in obscurity, nourished by the decay of pre-existing organisms, rooted in the mire of an imperfect civilisation, and, though refined and perfected by high culture, buds and blows at its own time. It is in a large measure what the soil and the atmosphere and the sunshine make it, it repays the care and toil human hands bestow upon it, yet its form and its colour are its own. And so we may not know all the causes which produce the phenomenon, nor do we now desire to look too closely into them, but we may at least watch it grow, enjoy its full beauty, and follow it in its withering, and our study remain one of purely artistic interest, for like the plant it is beautiful not only when in full flower, but at every stage of progress, and even in decline.

Like other simpler natural manifestations, Greek architecture, while the fruit of all the civilisations which preceded the great period of Greek culture, did not live for itself alone, for it has sown the seed of European architecture, and has

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determined the future form and growth of all subsequent European art. Behind and beyond the fountain-head which it makes for Western art, the tributary arts of Egypt, Chaldsea, Assyria, and Phoenicia shrink into their narrower channels, their sources lost in obscurity. From it flows the main stream of European culture, the arts of Rome and the Middle Ages, the rejuvenescence of Roman tradition in the fifteenth century, not to say the prevailing architecture of the cities in which we dwell. The influence of the past upon the present is part of the nature of things in which we live and move ; but rarely, if ever, in the world's history have past forms and principles and ideals exercised so potent an influence on subsequent art as those of the vigorous, rarely-dowered race which settled, perhaps more than two thousand years before Christ, on the coasts and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean. We do not seem to be wrong in attributing this paramount and matchless influence chieflyon the one hand to the reasonableness, the perfection of form, and the high spirituality of their art ; and on the other to the historic relation with Rome, which, taught of its vanquished, transmitted what it had assimilated to the subjugated ruder nations of the rising West. Whether epic or temple, lyric or bronze, it is by such indwelling qualities that they have been enabled to survive as a standard by which the world's subsequent efforts are measured and tested. The higher flights of literature and architecture present an almost perfect parallel. Both have more of art than science, and show little progress all down the ages within themselves, while they clearly reflect the progress of the soul of man. It may be that the greatness of the Greeks is not demonstrated most of all in their architecture, but it is by their architecture, using the word in its widest sense, that we may now most readily comprehend their civilisation in all its bearings. An eminent student of Greek language and literature said lately that he would give up the work of one of the greatest of Greek writers for one peep into the workshop where Phidias and Ictinus perfected their marvellous designs.

We can take leave to doubt if the sight of the workshop would reveal much that would be worth the knowing, but the perfected work which that workshop turned out, and which yet remains, is it not in itself a document, for those who have eyes to read it, more precious by far than any single work of Greek literature ?

B 2

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To the mythologist, sculptor, architect, philologist, and historian it has opened separate fields of investigation, and from each quarter a beam of light has been shed on the whole subject of Greek civilisation. And what is true of the Parthenon in this connection is much more true of the whole architectural development from the time of Agamemnon to that of Alexander, as that is illustrated on the monuments, and all that is comprehended in them — inscriptions, sculpture, and religious, civic, or domestic furniture. In this sense architecture might be called the sheet-anchor of history, which without the everlasting testimony of the monuments would certainly become fluid and unstable. The higher critics of literature in the generation now past gave Homer between them a time-period of about seven hundred years. They mostly believed his accredited work a mass of interpolations and accretions by different authors and at different dates. They had almost succeeded in casting doubt on his very existence, and discredit on the tale he told. But architectural archaeology, in maintaining the historic truth of the Homeric epics, has in greater measure vindicated itself as the teacher of the past.

But let us not make the mistake of depreciating in return the literary side of the study. We need them both, for how much more is open to the student who studies the architectural works with full mythological knowledge, or from the point of view of the trained philologist or historian ! No exposition of the subject will appear satisfactory to those whose education has fitted them to take up a standpoint in one or other of these directions. Inevitably the subject must appear as if presented in false perspective, or as if badly lighted, or carelessly drawn. But though the scope of this sketch is strictly limited to that which is comprehended in the architect's point of view, this need not mean the refusal of all historic narration, the rejection of mythological explanation, or the divorce of sculpture from its architectural setting. It involves the subservience of our programme to an architect's needs and ideals, but so rooted is the architectural purpose in the motives of the social and religious life of the Hellenes that it is believed that this point of view will give to others not specialists in any one department a broader and swifter view of the whole subject of Greek civilisation and history than is possible by any other simple method in the same limited space. For what can tell of the

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Greeks more worthily than the actual buildings that the wants and ideals of their civilisation determined, their hands shaped, and their wits refined ? Yet this wider historic view is only a subsidiary purpose : our business is to impart the lessons of architectural history in the new light, to give the architectural student a clear apprehension of the historic significance of style. Nothing is more likely to wean him from the misuse or feeble copyism of its characteristics than a grasp of their relation to surrounding circumstances. To this end buildings in their plan and design, rather than their details or furnishings, will be studied. Architecture is more than pottery or painted decoration the work of a nation, the symbol of a religion, the house of gods and man greater than the idols and ornaments thereof.

The division of the subject of Greek architecture is largely a geographical one. We commence with Greece, much as it is now defined in the map of Europe, leaving out of account yEtolia, Epirus, and Acarnania; and trace its history as revealed by the monuments of the primitive periods from about 1400 to 800 B.C. Our succeeding chapter treats of European Hellas, including in its enlarged boundaries Sicily and South Italy. From this we pass to Asia Minor and the contemporary period there, and in the following chapters dwell upon the perfections and refinements of the pure developed style, and eventually learn what we can from its slow decline.

Of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean, Greece, the part of Europe nearest to Asia Minor and to Egypt, is more profusely indented in its configuration than any other. In area Greece is smaller than Scotland ; its coast-line is much longer than that of Great Britain. The whole country is a vast assemblage of high mountain peaks, much recalling, though on a grander scale, the steeper and rockier parts of the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland. A labyrinth of land-locked harbours, of open creeks, of wild mountain tracts and ravines, it was divided and isolated one part from the other, save for the means of communication the sea afforded. The natural harbours lie open to the east and the south, stretching out their long arms as if to invite and welcome the sailor ; and the island stepping-stones fill in the great geographical design, placed as if to lure the kayaks from the coasts of Asia Minor. Were it possible to go back to the third

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millennium B.C. and record the events of that period in Greece, it appears as if these must have comprised the colonisation of its shores from earlier homes in Asia Minor, and its subsequent traffic with the nations of that region, just as the East has peopled the West in that larger civilisation which in our day is developing on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The East received back again many of its own sons, and from that time Greece was to plant colonies around the greater part of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Marsala in France, Sybaris in S. Italy, Syracuse and Akragas in Sicily, Kyrene in N. Africa, Naukratis in Egypt, are a few of the more important settlements of this wonderful people, who while often at enmity, and divided in dialect, laws, and manners, spoke one language, worshipped the same gods, and mingled in the same games and festivals.

Now it is not difficult for us to trace some relation between the circumstances of the Greek race and their expression in art. Their separation into small communities, and independent comparatively peaceful development ; the necessities which drove them to a seafaring life ; circumstances, also, such as the extreme brilliancy, the lightness and bracing properties of their atmosphere ; the clay, fine limestone, and marble in which the soil abounded ; the want of metal and other commodities which led to the necessity for traffic with other lands: it is easy now to say that these and other similar causes produced the types of Greek art. But there was a good deal more than this, whichever of the two great opposing views of history we take — whether we are to regard all this material provision as a preparation for the " Glory that was Greece," or whether we are to regard that glory as a kind of accidental or fortuitous result of circumstances. Both schools would agree to put it in this way : that it was in the race : an instinct : a tendency : an aspiration : an inspiration. Not that the Greeks any more than others were "a nation of artists"; but the instinct in the select few was revealed and matured largely because the nation prepared an atmosphere favourable to the culture of art. They knew so well how to live ; their social economy was so perfect; they lived so close to Nature, in short, that they seem to have produced the highest type of the natural man which the world has yet seen.

Progress in every department is attained only by making

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good use of the experience of the past ; and it is more to the point that we should seek to select and profit by the true and everlasting principles of Greek art than that we should desire to know where the Greeks came from, and who they were — matters that can never concern us practically as architects or citizens : since we cannot choose for ourselves a Hellenic pedigree. Yet this sketch would be strangely incomplete if in adding up the origins of Greek art we did not take this into account and put those very natural questions to those who teach us.

In the Pelasgi we have doubtless the first inhabitants of Greece, a Turanian race, it may be, although recent research tends to show they were identical with the Mycenaean. In any case, we have in the Mycenaeans or Achaians the bed, the first swarm of the Aryans who probably crossed from Asia Minor as our Celtic ancestors came from the Continent. Like the Celts over Europe, they were an artistic race, delighting in ornament, in jewellery, in carved ivory, in pottery, in beautiful household appliances. Upon these people and their comparatively advanced civilisation descend the rude Dorians and other tribes from the North, a race probably as destitute of refining influences as our Jutes and Angles and Saxons. With this descent occurs an expulsion in Southern Greece of much of the finest blood, as in our own land when the Romans left ; then a period of blending ensues, obscure in history and barren in art. Returns thereafter to Greece from new Ionia some of this expatriated culture, the Ionian element, which had always maintained its hold upon Attica, and the phenomenon ensues which sixteen hundred years later will recur in other shape in the land of the Angles.

Now this may not be scientifically correct according to the latest ethnological gospel, but it is sufficient for our purpose, and it gives us a general view of the racial history of the country : while it demonstrates that the Greeks were a heterogeneous people, combining a considerable variety of characteristics, of traditions, of natural aptitudes.

Within the years of the present generation the history of Greek art " has entered on a new phase," by reason of the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, followed up as they have been by Dr. Dorpfeld. To the drama of the history of Greece, which not so long ago opened with the scenes

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of the Iliad, there has thus been unfolded at one and the same time a prologue and a background. The richness of this prehistoric period in all manner of decorative art, to which the Mycenaean room of the new Museum of Athens bears the most striking testimony, has been such as almost to overshadow, for the time, the glories of the Periclean age. It will be our aim in these chapters to gather and select out of the mass of relevant and irrelevant material published on the subject some of the principal matters of interest to the architectural student, especially those discoveries that give fuller significance to the later developments, and appear to have influenced profoundly the course of Greek art.

The centre of the civilisation, called for convenience Mycenaean, appears to have been either in the district of which Mycenae is capital, or in the Island of Crete. If we can accept, as having any foundation in fact, the legend of Minos, his maritime power would explain much that is obscure in the history of the development of this type of culture. This, however, we know, that at the period which is called the Heroic Age, the country which we now recognise as Greece was peopled by numerous tribes or clans, forming practically separate states under their respective kings or chiefs. We have already hinted at the probable origin, migration, and character of these people, and it would be beyond the present purpose of this book to show how their clan-groups, their roving and warlike propensities, the nature of their arts and the forms of their expression in design, have been held to point to the identity of these Achaian settlers and the Celtic race. More especially is the theory confirmed by the researches of archaeologists, who find their trail over great part of Europe and along the north coast of Africa. No doubt there is much that is purely conjecture, and it is possible to read too much into the testimony of the tumulus and barrow, and the spira ornamental motive, the childhood of the practice of art, although they mark an epoch in the history of Europe, and testify to the substantial unity of the race over the area where such remains are found. It does not follow, for example, because we find a trail of ornament, pottery, and jewellery of Mycenaean character over Central or Western Europe, that a people kindred to the Mycenaeans migrated in this direction ; more probably the ideas migrated, or the articles themselves,

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but that there was a phase of widespread European civilisation, Ancient Italian, Etruscan, Celtic, call it what we may, preceding the Roman, which had some identity, or at least affinity, with Mycenaean culture, now admits of no doubt.

Tiryns is described in Greek literature as "the elder sister of Mycenae," and it is from the ruins of its acropolis or citadel palace that we best learn the character of the fortifications and the dwellings of the Heroic Age in Achaian Greece. The plan of the whole stronghold (111. 3) has a close resemblance to that

3. — PLAN OK THE PALACE AT TIRYNS FROM DR. SCHLIEMANN'S WORK.

of a fortified castle of the Middle Ages, in outline like the shape of a shoe, of which the lower castle, occupied perhaps by retainers, forms the heel, while the upper citadel is the ball or fore part of the foot, the part best preserved ; exhibiting a ground plan to this day of the propylaea, peristyles, megarons, and all the lesser apartments of the dwelling of a great Achaian chief. Surrounding the whole citadel or acropolis is a high wall of enormous thickness, twenty-four to fifty feet (believed by later generations to be the work of a race of giants known as the Cyclops), in the heart of which at certain points are contrived

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most cunning galleries for purposes of defence. Like the domed tombs, these passages are roofed by courses of stone in horizontal beds, projecting one over the other, and cut on the under side to the contour of a pointed arch. The principal entrance in the east wall is approached by an inclined way, so arranged that any assailants attempting this path would be subjected to an inconvenient attack upon their right flank, the side not protected by the shields, before they could reach the opening in the great wall. Even did they gain this point they would still be liable to repulse from the wall within, ere reaching the second gate. Our mission is a more peaceful one, and the ascent, toilsome as it is, is beset with no greater difficulties. Arrived at the upper level, we face the propylaeum, which is worthy of attention as the earliest example as well as the model of all the great gateways of the Greeks, down to the great propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis. The disposition of the gateway is on the plan of the portico-in-antis, and the doorway beyond admits to a similar portico facing the other way to an open court. Passing through a second propylseum, we enter the great court of the palace, which possesses as its chief feature the entrance to the men's apartment, or megaron. Everything indicates the importance of this room, the largest covered apartment in the building. Its facade, placed centrally in the court, presents the same arrangement as the exterior of the propylseum, viz., a portico-in-antis, the stone bases of its columns and the stone plinth of the antae or pilasters being still in situ. Beyond is the vestibule, approached from the portico by three doors, leading through a larger central door to the megaron itself. This is a large room, some thirty-nine by thirty-two feet, the roof of which would appear to have been carried on four wooden pillars. Within the oblong formed by these was the hearth, or megaron proper, which was the centre of social intercourse and hospitality ; our traditions of the fireside, the hearth and home, thus mounting back to the beginnings of European civilisation in the Peloponnesos.

In close proximity to the larger peristyle is a second court, approached by a narrow and tortuous passage from the propylaeum, which admits to the women's forecourt and megaron ; the whole arrangement suggesting the utmost privacy, such as is found in the disposition of the harem and courts of Assyrian palaces, and reminds one of the oriental origin of its occupants.

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The apartment itself is similar in plan to that of the men's, but is of simpler approach and of smaller dimensions. The passage surrounding the megarons may have been for the use of slaves, serving to connect the two sides of the palace without making use of the peristyles.

The palace thus discovered by Dr. Schliemann was built in prehistoric times (1400 — 1200 B.C.), and is supposed to have been destroyed by fire in the middle of the eleventh century B.C. Besides giving the clue to the distribution of the Homeric house, as described in the Odyssey, it presents the origin of many features which we find reproduced in stone or marble in the perfected types of Greek architecture. Thus the propylaa, with their porticoes-in-antes, are to be found in the entrance gateways to the Acropolis of Athens, and in the sacred enclosures of Olympia, Epidaurus, and other Greek cities. The portico-in-antis of the megaron is the elementary form of that feature which is found in almost every Greek temple, for although in later times single or double peristyles were built round to give greater importance to the cella, the pronaos, or entrance to the same, is virtually of the same plan. Perhaps the most interesting feature is that of the parastades or antae. In consequence of the ephemeral nature of the materials used in the walls of Tiryns — (rubble stone bedded in clay as a base to the crude brick wall) — parastades were employed to protect the faces and sides of the front walls and to assist in supporting the architrave or epistyle carried by their columns. These in the megaron, for instance, were raised on stone plinths and secured to the stone with dowels. The baulks of timber or posts placed side by side were reproduced as the anta; in Greek temples when they had no longer a constructive, but only an artistic function to fulfil. The partition wall between the portico and the vestibule was constructed entirely of wood, and although there is no evidence to prove that the jambs inclined inwards to lessen the bearing of the lintel, this inclination is found reproduced in the earliest Greek tombs, and suggests, therefore, its wooden origin.