Greek Architecture

Main article: Architecture of Ancient Greece

Temple of Concordia in Agrigento, Sicily. The architecture and urbanism of the Greeks and Romans was very different from that of the Egyptians and Persians. Civic life gained importance for all members of the community. In the time of the ancients religious matters were only handled by the ruling class; by the time of the Greeks, religious mystery had skipped the confines of the temple-palace compounds and was the subject of the people or polis. Greek civic life was sustained by new, open spaces called the agora which were surrounded by public buildings, stores and temples. The agora embodied the newfound respect for social justice received through open debate rather than imperial mandate. Though divine wisdom still presided over human affairs, the living rituals of ancient civilizations had become inscribed in space, in the paths that wound towards the acropolis for example. Each place had its own nature, set within a world refracted through myth, thus temples were sited atop mountains all the better to touch the heavens. The architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC.[1] Ancient Greek architecture is best known from its temples, many of which are found throughout the region, mostly as ruins but many substantially intact. The second important type of building that survives all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre, with the earliest dating from around 350 BC. Other architectural forms that are still in evidence are the processional gateway (propylon), the public square (agora) surrounded by storied colonnade (stoa), the town council building (bouleuterion), the public monument, the monumental tomb (mausoleum) and the stadium. Ancient Greek architecture is distinguished by its highly formalised characteristics, both of structure and decoration. This is particularly so in the case of temples where each building appears to have been conceived as a sculptural entity within the landscape, most often raised on high ground so that the elegance of its proportions and the effects of light on its surfaces might be viewed from all angles.[2] Nikolaus Pevsner refers to "the plastic shape of the [Greek] temple.....placed before us with a physical presence more intense, more alive than that of any later building".[3]
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The formal vocabulary of Ancient Greek architecture, in particular the division of architectural style into three defined orders: the Doric Order, the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order, was to have profound effect on Western architecture of later periods. The architecture of Ancient Rome grew out of that of Greece and maintained its influence in Italy unbroken until the present day. From the Renaissance, revivals of Classicism have kept alive not only the precise forms and ordered details of Greek architecture, but also its concept of architectural beauty based on balance and proportion. The successive styles of Neoclassical architecture and Greek Revival

Influences

Geography
The mainland and islands of Greece are rocky, with deeply indented coastline, and rugged mountain ranges with few substantial forests. The most freely available building material is stone. Limestone was readily available and easily worked. [4] There is an abundance of high quality white marble both on the mainland and islands, particularly Paros and Naxos. This finely grained material was a major contributing factor to precision of detail, both architectural and sculptural, that adorned Ancient Greek architecture. [5] Deposits of high quality potter's clay were found throughout Greece and the Islands, with major deposits near Athens. It was used not only for pottery vessels, but also roof tiles and architectural decoration.[6] The climate of Greece is maritime, with both the coldness of winter and the heat of summer tempered by sea breezes. This led to a lifestyle where many activities took place outdoors. Hence temples were placed on hilltops, their exteriors designed as a visual focus of gatherings and processions, while theatres were often an enhancement of a naturally occurring sloping site where people could sit, rather than a containing structure. Colonnades encircling buildings, or surrounding courtyards provided shelter from the sun and from sudden winter storms.[5] The light of Greece may be another important factor in the development of the particular character of Ancient Greek architecture. The light is often extremely bright, with both the sky and the sea vividly blue. The clear light and sharp shadows give a precision to the details of landscape, pale rocky outcrops and seashore. This clarity is alternated with periods of haze that varies in colour to the light on it. In this characteristic environment, the Ancient Greek architects constructed buildings that were marked by precision of detail. [5] The gleaming marble surfaces were smooth, curved, fluted, or ornately sculpted to reflect the sun, cast graded shadows and change in colour with the ever-changing light of day.

The rugged indented coastline at Rhamnous, Attica

The Theatre and Temple of Apollo in mountainous country at Delphi

The Acropolis, Athens, is high above the city on a natural prominence.

The Islands of the Aegean from Cape Sounion

History
The history of the Ancient Greek civilization is divided into two eras, the Hellenic and the Hellenistic.[7] The Hellenic period commenced circa 900 BC, (with substantial works of architecture appearing from about 600 BC) and ended with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. During the Hellenistic period, 323 BC - AD 30, Hellenic culture was spread widely, firstly throughout lands conquered by Alexander, and then by the Roman Empire which absorbed much of Greek culture.[1][8] Prior to the Hellenic era, two civilizations had existed within the region, the Minoan and the Mycenaean. Minoan is the name given by modern historians to the people of ancient Crete (c. 28001100 BC), known for their elaborate and richly decorated palaces, and for their pottery painted with floral and marine motifs. The Mycenaean culture occurred on the Peloponnesus (c.15001100 BC) and was quite different in character, building citadels, fortifications and tombs rather than palaces, and decorating their pottery with bands of marching soldiers rather than octopus and seaweed. Both these civilizations came to an end
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around 1100 BC, that of Crete possibly because of volcanic devastation, and that of Mycenae because of invasion from Dorian people of the Greek mainland. [9] This led to a period with few remaining signs of culture, and thus often referred to as a Dark Age. The towns established by the Dorian people were ruled initially by aristocracy, and later by tyrants, leaders who rose from the merchant or warrior classes. Some cities, such as Sparta, maintained a strongly ordered and conservative character, like that of the Mycenae. Athens, on the other hand, was influenced by the influx of Ionian people from Asia Minor. In this cultural diversity, the art of logic developed, and with it the notion of democracy.

Art

Black figure Amphora, Atalante painter (500-490 BC), shows proportion and style that are hallmarks of Ancient Greek art

The art history of the Hellenic era is generally subdivided into four periods, the Protogeometric (1100-900 BC), the Geometric (900-700 BC), the Archaic (700 - 500 BC) and the Classical (500 - 323 BC)[10] with sculpture being further divided into Severe Classical, High Classical and Late Classical.[1] The first signs of the particular artistic character that defines Ancient Greek architecture are to be seen in the pottery of the Dorian Greeks from the 10th century BC. Already at this period it is created with a sense of proportion, symmetry and balance not apparent in similar pottery from Crete and Mycenae. The decoration is precisely geometric, and ordered neatly into zones on defined areas of each vessel. These qualities were to manifest themselves not only through a millennium of Greek pottery making, but also in the architecture that was to emerge in the 6th century. [11] The major development that occurred was in the growing use of the human figure as the major decorative motif, and the increasing surety with which humanity, its mythology, activities and passions were depicted.[1] The development in the depiction of the human form in pottery was accompanied by a similar development in sculpture. The tiny stylised bronzes of the Geometric period gave way to life-sized highly formalised monolithic representation in the Archaic period. The Classical period was marked by a rapid development towards idealised but increasingly lifelike depictions of gods in human form.[12] This development had a direct effect on the sculptural decoration of temples, as many of the greatest extant works of Ancient Greek
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sculpture once adorned temples,[13] and many of the largest recorded statues of the age, such as the lost chryselephantine statues of Zeus at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Athena at the Parthenon, Athens, both over 40 feet high, were once housed in them. [14]

Religion and philosophy

above: Modern model of ancient Olympia with the Temple of Zeus at the centre right: Recreation of the colossal statue of Athena, once housed in the Parthenon, with sculptor Alan LeQuire

The religion of Ancient Greece was a form of nature worship that grew out of the beliefs of earlier cultures. However, unlike earlier cultures, man was no longer perceived as being threatened by nature, but as its sublime product.[8] The natural elements were personified as gods of completely human form, and very human behaviour. [5] The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. The most important deities were: Zeus, the supreme god and ruler of the sky; Hera, his wife and goddess of marriage; Athena, goddess of wisdom; Poseidon, god of the sea; Demeter, goddess of the earth; Apollo, god of the sun, law, reason, music and poetry; Artemis, goddess of the moon, the hunt and the wilderness; Aphrodite, goddess of love; Ares, God of war; Hermes, god of commerce and medicine, and Hephaestus, god of fire and metalwork.[5] Worship, like many other activities, was done in community, in the open. However, by 600 BC, the gods were often represented by large statues and it was necessary to provide a building in which each of these could be housed. This led to the development of temples. [15]
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The Ancient Greeks perceived order in the universe, and in turn, applied order and reason to their creations. Their humanist philosophy put mankind at the centre of things, and promoted well-ordered societies and the development of democracy.[8] At the same time, the respect for human intellect demanded reason, and promoted a passion for enquiry, logic, challenge, and problem solving. The architecture of the Ancient Greeks, and in particular, temple architecture, responds to these challenges with a passion for beauty, and for order and symmetry which is the product of a continual search for perfection, rather than a simple application of a set of working rules.

Architectural character

Early development
There is a clear division between the architecture of the preceding Mycenaean culture and Minoan cultures and that of the Ancient Greeks, the techniques and an understanding of their style being lost when these civilizations fell.[4] Mycenaean art is marked by its circular structures and tapered domes with flat-bedded, cantilevered courses.[9] This architectural form did not carry over into the architecture of Ancient Greece, but reappeared about 400 BC in the interior of large monumental tombs such as the Lion Tomb at Cnidos (c. 350 BC). Little is known of Mycenaean wooden or domestic architecture and any continuing traditions that may have flowed into the early buildings of the Dorian people. The Minoan architecture of Crete, was of trabeated form like that of Ancient Greece. It employed wooden columns with capitals, but the columns were of very different form to Doric columns, being narrow at the base and splaying upward. [9] The earliest forms of columns in Greece seem to have developed independently. As with Minoan architecture, Ancient Greek domestic architecture centred on open spaces or courtyards surrounded by colonnades. This form was adapted to the construction of hypostyle halls within the larger temples. The domestic architecture of ancient Greece employed walls of sun dried clay bricks or wooden framework filled with fibrous material such as straw or seaweed covered with clay or plaster, on a base of stone which protected the more vulnerable elements from damp. [4] Roofs were probably of thatch with eaves which overhung the permeable walls. It is probable that many early houses had an open porch or "pronaos" above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment.[7] The evolution that occurred in architecture was towards public building, first and foremost the temple, rather than towards grand domestic architecture such as had evolved in Crete.[2]

Types of buildings
Main articles: Ancient Greek temple, Ancient Greek theatre, Acropolis, Agora, and Stoa

The rectangular temple is the most common and best-known form of Greek public architecture. The temple did not serve the same function as a modern church, since the altar stood under the open sky in the temenos or sacred precinct, often directly before the
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temple. Temples served as the location of a cult image and as a storage place or strong room for the treasury associated with the cult of the god in question, and as a place for devotees of the god to leave their votive offerings, such as statues, helmets and weapons. Some Greek temples appear to have been oriented astronomically.[16] The temple was generally part of a religious precinct known as the acropolis. According to Aristotle, '"the site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives good elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood".[2] Small circular temples, tholos were also constructed, as well as small temple-like buildings that served as treasuries for specific groups of donors. [17] During the late 5th and 4th centuries BC, town planning became an important consideration of Greek builders, with towns such as Paestum and Priene being laid out with a regular grid of paved streets and an agora or central market place surrounded by a colonnade or stoa. The completely restored Stoa of Attalos can be seen in Athens. Towns were also equipped with a public fountain where water could be collected for household use. The development of regular town plans is associated with Hippodamus of Miletus, a pupil of Pythagoras.[18][19][20] Public buildings became "dignified and gracious structures", and were sited so that they related to each other architecturally.[19] The propylon or porch, formed the entrance to temple sanctuaries and other significant sites with the best-surviving example being the Propylaea on the Acropolis of Athens. The bouleuterion was a large public building with a hypostyle hall that served as a court house and as a meeting place for the town council (boule). Remnants of bouleuterion survive at Athens, Olympia and Miletus, the latter having held up to 1200 people.[21] Every Greek town had an open-air theatre. These were used for both public meetings as well as dramatic performances. The theatre was usually set in a hillside outside the town, and had rows of tiered seating set in a semicircle around the central performance area, the orchestra. Behind the orchestra was a low building called the skn, which served as a storeroom, a dressing-room, and also as a backdrop to the action taking place in the orchestra. A number of Greek theatres survive almost intact, the best known being at Epidaurus, by the architect Polykleitos the Younger.[18] Greek towns of substantial size also had a palaestra or a gymnasium, the social centre for male citizens which included spectator areas, baths, toilets and club rooms. [21] Other buildings associated with sports include the hippodrome for horse racing, of which only remnants have survived, and the stadium for foot racing, 600 feet in length, of which examples exist at Olympia, Delphi, Epidarus and Ephesus, while the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, which seats 45,000 people, was restored in the 19th century and was used in the 1896, 1906 and 2004 Olympic Games.[21][22]

Porta Rosa, a street (3rd century BCE) Velia, Italy

The reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, the Agora, Athens

The Bouleuterion, at Priene

The Stadium at Epidauros

The Palaestra at Olympia, used for boxing and wrestling

The Theatre of Dionysus, Athens

Pebble mosaic floor of a house at Olynthos, depicting Bellerophon

The Altar of Hiero II at Syracuse

Greek temples (Ancient Greek: , ho nas "dwelling", semantically distinct from Latin templum "temple") were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them. Temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread building type in Greek architecture. In the Hellenistic kingdoms of Southwest Asia and of North Africa, buildings erected to fulfill the functions of a temple often continued to follow the local traditions. Even where a Greek influence is visible, such structures are not normally considered as Greek temples. This applies, for example, to the Graeco-Parthian and Bactrian temples, or to the Ptolemaic examples, which follow Egyptian tradition. Most Greek temples were oriented astronomically. [1]

Contents

1 Overview 2 Development o 2.1 Origins o 2.2 Wooden architecture: Early Archaic o 2.3 Introduction of stone architecture: Archaic and Classical o 2.4 Decline of Greek temple building: Hellenistic period o 2.5 The end of Greek temple construction: Roman Greece o 2.6 The abandonment and conversion of temples: Late Antiquity 3 Structure o 3.1 Floor plan o 3.2 Elevation o 3.3 Aspect 4 Design and measurements o 4.1 Proportions o 4.2 Naos-peristasis relationship o 4.3 Column number formula o 4.4 Column spacing 5 Optical refinements 6 Decoration o 6.1 Colouring o 6.2 Architectural sculpture 7 Function and design o 7.1 Cult statue and cella o 7.2 Opisthodomos o 7.3 Peristasis 8 Sponsors, construction and costs o 8.1 Public and private sponsors o 8.2 Organization o 8.3 Costs 9 Temples of the different architectural orders o 9.1 Doric temples o 9.2 Ionic temples o 9.3 Corinthian temples 10 See also 11 References 12 Bibliography 13 External links 14 Source of translation

Overview
Between the 9th century BC and the 6th century BC, Ancient Greek temples developed from the small mudbrick structures into monumental double porticos buildings, often reaching more than 20 metres in height (not including the roof). Stylistically, they were governed by the regionally specific architectural orders. Originally, the distinction being initially between the Doric and Ionic orders, with the Corinthian order provided a third alternative in the late 3rd century BC. A multitude of different ground plans were developed, each of which could be combined with the superstructure in the different orders. From the 3rd century BC
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onwards, the construction of large temples became less common; after a short 2nd century BC flourish, it ceased nearly entirely in the 1st century BC. Thereafter, only smaller structures were newly begun, older temples continued to be renovated or (if incomplete) completed. Greek temples were designed and constructed according to set proportions, mostly determined by the lower diameter of the columns or by the dimensions of the foundation levels. The nearly mathematical strictness of the basic designs thus reached was lightened by optical refinements. In spite of the still widespread idealised image, Greek temples were painted, so that bright reds and blues contrasted with the white of the building stones or of stucco. The more elaborate temples were equipped with very rich figural decoration in the form of reliefs and pedimental sculpture. The construction of temples was usually organised and financed by cities or by the administrations of sanctuaries. Private individuals, especially Hellenistic rulers, could also sponsor such buildings. In the late Hellenistic period, their decreasing financial wealth, along with the progressive incorporation of the Greek world within the Roman State, whose officials and rulers took over as sponsors, led to the end of Greek temple construction. New temples now belonged to the tradition of Roman architecture, which, in spite of the Greek influence on it, aimed for different goals and followed different aesthetic principles.

Development

Model of a typical Doric temple, the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina (Glyptothek, Munich).

Origins
The basic principles for the development of Greek temple architecture have their roots between the 10th century BC and the 7th century BC. In its simplest form as a naos, the temple was a simple rectangular shrine with protruding side walls (antae), forming a small porch. Until the 8th century BC, there were also apsidal structures with more or less semicircular back walls, but the rectangular type prevailed. By adding columns to this small basic structure, the Greeks triggered the development and variety of their temple architecture.

Wooden architecture: Early Archaic

The first temples were mostly mud brick and marble structures on stone foundations. The columns and superstructure (entablature) were wooden, door openings and antae were protected with wooden planks. The mud brick walls were often reinforced by wooden posts, in a type of half-timbered technique. The elements of this simple and clearly structured
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wooden architecture produced all the important design principles that were to determine the development of Greek temples for centuries. Near the end of the 7th century BC, the dimensions of these simple structures were increased considerably.[2] Temple C at Thermos is the first of the hekatompedoi, temples with a length of 100 feet (30 m). Since it was not technically possible to roof broad spaces at that time, these temples remained very narrow, at 6 to 10 metres in width. To stress the importance of the cult statue and the building holding it, the naos was equipped with a canopy, supported by columns. The resulting set of porticos surrounding the temple on all sides (the peristasis) was exclusively used for temples in Greek architecture.[3] The combination of the temple with porticos (ptera) on all sides posed a new aesthetic challenge for the architects and patrons: the structures had to be built to be viewed from all directions. This led to the development of the peripteros, with a frontal pronaos (porch), mirrored by a similar arrangement at the back of the building, the opisthodomos, which became necessary for entirely aesthetic reasons.

The Temple of Apollo at Corinth, one of the earliest stone-built Doric temples. Note the monolithic columns.

Introduction of stone architecture: Archaic and Classical

After the introduction of stone architecture, the essential elements and forms of each temple, such as the number of columns and of column rows, underwent constant change throughout Greek antiquity. In the 6th century BC, Ionian Samos developed the double-colonnaded dipteros as an alternative to the single peripteros. This idea was later copied in Didyma, Ephesos and Athens. Between the 6th and the late 4th century BC, innumerable temples were built; nearly every polis, every colony contained one or several. There were also temples at extraurban sites and at major sanctuaries like Olympia and Delphi. The observable change of form indicates the search for a harmonious form of all architectural elements: the development led from simpler early forms which often appear coarse and bulky up to the aesthetic perfection and refinement of the later structures; from
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simple experimentation to the strict mathematical complexity of ground plans and superstructures.

The temple of Zeus in Cyrene.

Decline of Greek temple building: Hellenistic period

From the early Hellenistic period onwards, the Greek peripteral temple lost much of its importance. With very few exceptions, Classical temple construction ceased both in Hellenistic Greece and in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia. Only the west of Asia Minor maintained a low level of temple construction during the 3rd century BC. The construction of large projects, such as the temple of Apollo at Didyma near Miletus and the Artemision at Sardis did not make much progress. The 2nd century BC saw a revival of temple architecture, including peripteral temples. This is partially due to the influence of the architect Hermogenes of Priene, who redefined the principles of Ionic temple construction both practically and through theoretical work. [4] At the same time, the rulers of the various Hellenistic kingdoms provided copious financial resources. Their self-aggrandisation, rivalry, desires to stabilise their spheres of influence, as well as the increasing conflict with Rome (partially played out in the field of culture), combined to release much energy into the revival of complex Greek temple architecture.[5] During this phase, Greek temples became widespread in southern Asia Minor, Egypt and Northern Africa. But in spite of such examples and of the positive conditions produced by the economic upturn and the high degree of technical innovation in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, [6] Hellenistic religious architecture is mostly represented by a multitude of small temples in antis and prostyle temples, as well as tiny shrines (naiskoi). The latter had been erected in important places, on market squares, near springs and by roads, since the Archaic period, but reached their main flourish now. This limitation to smaller structures led to the development of a special form, the pseudoperipteros, which uses engaged columns along the cella walls to produce the illusion of a peripteral temple. An early case of this is temple L at Epidauros, followed by many prominent Roman examples, such as the Maison Carre at Nmes.[7]

The end of Greek temple construction: Roman Greece

In the early 1st century BC, the Mithridatic Wars led to changes of architectural practice. The role of sponsor was increasingly taken by Roman magistrates of the Eastern provinces,[8]
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who rarely demonstrated their generosity by building temples. [9] Nevertheless, some temples were erected at this time, e.g. the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias.[10] The introduction of the principate lead to few new buildings, mostly temples for the imperial cult[11] or to Roman deities, e.g. the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek.[12] Although new temples to Greek deities still continued to be constructed, e.g. the Tychaion at Selge[13] they tend to follow the canonical forms of the developing Roman imperial style of architecture [14] or to maintain local non-Greek idiosyncrasies, like the temples in Petra[15] or Palmyra.[16] The increasing romanisation of the east[17] entailed the end of Greek temple architecture, although work continued on the completion of unfinished large structures like the temple of Apollo at Didyma or the Olympieion at Athens into the later 2nd century AD.[18]

Syracuse (Sicily): The 5th-century BC Doric temple of Athena, transformed into a Christian church during the Middle Ages.

The abandonment and conversion of temples: Late Antiquity

The edicts of Theodosius I and his successors on the throne of the Roman Empire, banning pagan cults, led to the gradual closure of Greek temples, or their conversion into Christian churches. Thus ends the history of the Greek temple, although many of them remained in use for a long time afterwards. For example, the Athenian Parthenon, first reconsecrated as a church was turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest and remained structurally unharmed until the 17th century AD. Only the unfortunate impact of a Venetian cannonball into the building, then used to store gunpowder, led to the destruction of much of this important temple, more than 2,000 years after it was built. Greek Temples were known for being extremely flammable especially the architrave. [citation
needed]

Structure
Canonical Greek temples maintained the same basic structure throughout many centuries. The Greeks used a limited number of spatial components, influencing the plan, and of architectural members, determining the elevation.

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Floor plan
Naos The central cult structure of the temple, the naos, can be separated in several areas. Usually, the main room, the cella, contained a cult statue of the respective deity. In Archaic temples, a separate room, the so-called adyton was sometimes included in the cella for this purpose. In Sicily, this habit continued into the Classical period. Pronaos and opisthodomos At the front of the cella, there is a porch, the pronaos, created by the protruding side walls of the cella (the antae), and two columns placed between them. A similar room at the back of the cella is called the opisthodomos. There is no door connecting the latter with the cella; its existence is necessitated entirely by aesthetic considerations: to maintain the consistency of the peripteral temple and to ensure its viewability from all sides, the execution of the front has to be repeated at the rear. Peristasis The naos is enclosed on all four sides by the peristasis, usually a single row, rarely a double one, of columns. This produces a surrounding portico, the pteron, which offered shelter to visitors of the sanctuary and room for cult processions.

Elements of the Naos

Naos

Pronaos

Cella
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Adyton (exceptional)

Opisthodomos (sometimes omitted) Plan types These components allowed the realisation of a variety of different plan types in Greek temple architecture. The simplest example of a Greek temple is the templum in antis, a small rectangular structure sheltering the cult statue. In front of the cella, a small porch or pronaos was formed by the protruding cella walls, the antae. The pronaos was linked to the cella by a door. To support the superstructure, two columns were placed between the fronts of the antae (in antis). When equipped with an opisthodomos, this type is called a double anta temple. A variant of that type has the opisthodomos at the back of the cella indicated merely by half-columns and shortened antae, so that it can be described as a pseudoopisthodomos.

Different temple plans

If the porch of a temple in antis has a row of usually four or six columns in front of its whole breadth, the temple is described as a prostylos or prostyle temple. An amphiprostylos repeats the same column setting at the back.

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In contrast, the term peripteros designates a temple surrounded by ptera (colonnades) on all four sides, each usually formed by single row of columns. This produces an unobstructed surrounding portico, the peristasis, on all four sides of the temple. A Hellenistic and Roman form of this shape is the pseudoperipteros, where the side and rear porches are indicated only by engaged columns or pilasters directly attached to the external cella walls. A dipteros is equipped with a double colonnade on all four sides, sometimes with further rows of columns at the front and back. A pseudodipteros lacks the inner row of columns in its peristasis, but has porches of double width. Circular temples form a special type. If they are surrounded by a colonnade, they are known as peripteral tholoi. Although of sacred character, their function as a temple can often not be asserted. A comparable structure is the monopteros, or cyclostyle which, however, lacks a cella. To clarify ground plan types, the defining terms can be combined, producing terms such as: peripteral double anta temple, prostyle in antis, peripteral amphiprostyle, etc. Column number terminology An additional definition, already used by Vitruvius (IV, 3, 3) is determined by the number of columns at the front. Modern scholarship uses the following terms:
technical term distyle tetrastyle hexastyle octastyle decastyle number of columns at front 2 columns 4 columns, term used by Vitruvius 6 columns, term used by Vitruvius 8 columns 10 columns

The term dodekastylos is only used for the 12-column hall at the Didymaion. No temples with facades of that width are known. Very few temples had an uneven number of columns at the front. Examples are Temple of Hera I at Paestum, Temple of Apollo A at Metapontum, both of which have a width of nine columns (enneastyle), and the Archaic temple at Thermos with a width of five columns (pentastyle).

Elevation

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Elevation of the Temple of Concordia at Agrigentum.

The elevation of Greek temples is always subdivided in three zones: the crepidoma, the columns and the entablature. Foundations and crepidoma Stereobate, euthynteria and crepidoma form the substructure of the temple. The underground foundation of a Greek temple is known as the stereobate. It consists of several layers of squared stone blocks. The uppermost layer, the euthynteria, partially protrudes above the ground level. Its surface is carefully smoothed and levelled. It supports a further foundation of three steps, the crepidoma. The uppermost level of the crepidoma provides the surface on which the columns and walls are placed; it is called stylobate.

Illustration of Doric (first three), Ionic (next three) and Corinthian (final two) columns.

Columns Placed on the stylobate are the vertical column shafts, tapering towards the top. They are normally made of several separately cut column drums. Depending on the architectural order, a different number of flutings are cut into the column shaft: Doric columns have 18 to 20 flutings, Ionic and Corinthian ones normally have 24. Early Ionic columns had up to 48
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flutings. While Doric columns stand directly on the stylobate, Ionic and Corinthian ones possess a base, sometimes additionally placed atop a plinth. In Doric columns, the top is formed by a concavely curved neck, the hypotrachelion, and the capital, in Ionic columns, the capital sits directly on the shaft. In the Doric order, the capital consists of a circular torus bulge, originally very flat, the so-called echinus, and a square slab, the abacus. In the course of their development, the echinus expands more and more, culminating in a linear diagonal, at 45 to the vertical. The echinus of Ionic columns is decorated with an egg-and-dart band followed by a sculpted pillow forming two volutes, supporting a thin abacus. The eponymous Corinthian capital of the Corinthian order is crowned by rings of stylised acanthus leaves, forming tendrils and volutes that reach to the corners of the abacus.

Entablature on the west side of the Parthenon.

Entablature The capitals support the entablature. In the Doric order, the entablature always consists of two parts, the architrave and the Doric frieze (or triglyph frieze). The Ionic order of Athens and the Cyclades also used a frieze above an architrave, whereas the frieze remained unknown in the Ionic architecture of Asia Minor until the 4th century BC. There, the architrave was directly followed by the dentil. The frieze was originally placed in front of the roof beams, which were externally visible only in the earlier temples of Asia Minor. The Doric frieze was structured by triglyphs. These were placed above the axis of each column, and above the centre of each intercolumniation. The spaces between the triglyphs contained metopes, sometimes painted or decorated with relief sculpture. In the Ionic or Corinthian orders, the frieze possesses no triglyphs and is simply left flat, sometimes decorated with paintings or reliefs. With the introduction of stone architecture, the protection of the porticos and the support of the roof construction was moved upwards to the level of the geison, depriving the frieze of its structural function and turning it into an entirely decorative feature. Frequently, the cella is also decorated with architrave and frieze, especially at the front of the pronaos.

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Geison block from the temple at Lykosoura.

Cornice and geison Above the frieze, or an intermediate member, e.g. the dentil of the Ionic or Corinthian orders, the cornice protrudes notably. It consists of the geison (on the sloped sides or pediments of the narrow walls a sloped geison), and the sima. On the long side, the sima, often elaborately decorated, was equipped with water spouts, often in the shape of lions' heads. The pedimental triangle or tympanon on the narrow sides of the temple was created by the Doric introduction of the gabled roof, earlier temples often had hipped roofs. The tympanon was usually richly decorated with sculptures of mythical scenes or battles. The corners and ridges of the roof were decorated with acroteria, originally geometric, later floral or figural decorations.

Aspect
As far as topographically possible, the temples were freestanding and designed to be viewed from all sides. They were not normally designed with consideration for their surroundings, but formed autonomous structures. This is a major difference from Roman temples which were often designed as part of a planned urban area or square and had a strong emphasis on being viewed frontally.

Design and measurements

Proportions
The foundations of Greek temples could reach dimensions of up to 115 by 55 m, i.e. the size of an average soccer field. Columns could reach a height of 20 m. To design such large architectural bodies harmoniously, a number of basic aesthetic principles were developed and tested already on the smaller temples. the main measurement was the foot, varying between 29 and 34 cm from region to region. This initial measurement was the basis for all the units that determined the shape of the temple. Important factors include the lower diameter of the columns and the width of their plinths. The distance between the column axes (intercolumniation or bay) could also be used as a basic unit. these measurements were in set proportions to other elements of design, such as column height and column distance. In conjunction with the number of columns per side, they also determined the dimensions of stylobate and peristasis, as well as of the naos proper. The rules regarding vertical proportions, especially in the Doric order, also allow for a deduction of the basic
20

design options for the entablature from the same principles. Alternatives to this very rational system were sought in the temples of the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, when it was attempted to develop the basic measurements from the planned dimensions of cella or stylobate, i.e. to reverse the system described above and deduce the smaller units from the bigger ones. Thus, for example, the cella length was sometimes set at 100 feet (30 m) (100 is a sacred number, also known from the hecatomb, a sacrifice of 100 animals), and all further measurements had to be in relation to this number, leading to aesthetically quite unsatisfactory solutions.

Naos-peristasis relationship
Another determining design feature was the relationship linking naos and peristasis. In the original temples, this would have been subject entirely to practical necessities, and always based on axial links between cella walls and columns, but the introduction of stone architecture broke that connection. Nevertheless, it did survive throughout Ionic architecture. In Doric temples, however, the wooden roof construction, originally placed behind the frieze, now started at a higher level, behind the geison. This ended the structural link between frieze and roof; the structural elements of the latter could now be placed independent of axial relationships. As a result, the cella walls lost their fixed connection with the columns for a long time and could be freely placed within the peristasis. Only after a long phase of developments did the architects choose the alignment of the outer wall face with the adjacent column axis as the obligatory principle for Doric temples. Doric temples in Greater Greece rarely follow this system.

Column number formula

The basic proportions of the building were determined by the numeric relationship of columns on the front and back to those on the sides. The classic solution chosen by Greek architects is the formula "frontal columns : side columns = n : (2n+1)", which can also be used for the number of intercolumniations. As a result, numerous temples of the Classical period in Greece (circa 500 to 336 BC) had 6 x 13 columns or 5 x 11 intercolumnitions. The same proportions, in a more abstract form, determine most of the Parthenon, not only in its 8 x 17 column peristasis, but also, reduced to 4:9, in all other basic measurements, including the intercolumniations, the stylobate, the width-height proportion of the entire building, and the geison (here reversed to 9:4).[19]

21

Proportion of column diameter to intercolumnium.

Column spacing
Since the turn of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the proportion of column width to the space between columns, the intercolumnium, played an increasingly important role in architectural theory, reflected, for example, in the works of Vitruvius. According to this proportion, Vitruvius (3, 3, 1 ff) distinguished between five different design concepts and temple types:

Pyknostyle, tight-columned: intercolumnium = 1 lower column diameters Systyle, close-columned: intercolumnium = 2 lower column diameters Eustyle, well-columned: intercolumnium = 2 lower column diameters Diastyle, board-columned: interkolumnium = 3 lower column diameters Araeostyle, light-columned: intercolumnium = 3 lower column diameters

The determination and discussion of these basic principles went back to Hermogenes, whom Vitruvius credits with the invention of the eustylos. The Temple of Dionysos at Teos, normally ascribed to Hermogenes, does indeed have intercolumnia measuring 2 ⅙ of the lower column diameters.[20]

Optical refinements

Exaggerated sketch of the curvature of a Doric temple.

To loosen up the mathematical strictness and to counteract distortions of human visual perception, a slight curvature of the whole building, hardly visible with the naked eye, was introduced. The ancient architects had realised that long horizontal lines tend to make the optical impression of sagging towards their centre. To prevent this effect, the horizontal lines of stylobate and/or entablature were raised by a few centimetres towards the middle of a building. This avoidance of mathematically straight lines also included the columns, which did not taper in a linear fashion, but were refined by a pronounced "swelling" (entasis) of the shaft. Additionally, columns were placed with a slight inclination towards the centre of the building. Curvature and entasis occur from the mid 6th century BC onwards. The most consistent use of these principles is seen in the Classical Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. Its curvature affects all horizontal elements up to the sima, even the cella walls reflect it throughout their height. The inclination of its columns (which also have
22

a clear entasis), is continued by architrave and triglyph frieze, the external walls of the cella also reflect it. Not one block of the building, not a single architrave or frieze element could be hewn as a simple rectilinear block. All architectural elements display slight variations from the right angle, individually calculated for each block. As a side effect, each preserved building block from the Parthenon, its columns, cella walls or entablature, can be assigned its exact position today. In spite of the immense extra effort entailed in this perfection, the Parthenon, including its sculptural decoration, was completed in the record time of sixteen years (447 to 431 BC).[21]

Reconstruction of original painted state on a scaffolding covering the Temple of Concordia, Akragas.

Decoration

Colouring
Greek temples were, as a rule, colourfully painted. Only three basic colours, with no shades, were used: white, blue and red, occasionally also black. The crepidoma, columns and architrave were mostly white. Only details, like the horizontally cut grooves at the bottom of Doric capitals (anuli), or decorative elements of Doric architraves (e.g. taenia and guttae) might be painted in different colours. The frieze was clearly structured by use of colours. In a Doric triglyph frieze, blue triglyphs alternated with red metopes, the latter often serving as a background for individually painted sculptures. Reliefs, ornaments and pedimental sculptures were executed with a wider variety of colours and nuances. Recessed or otherwise shaded elements, like mutules or triglyph slits could be painted black. Paint was mostly applied to parts that were not load-bearing, whereas structural parts like columns or the horizontal elements of architrave and geison were left unpainted (if made of high quality limestone or marble) or covered with a white stucco.

Architectural sculpture

23

A centaur struggling with a Lapith - Metope from the Parthenon.

Greek temples were often enhanced with figural decorations. especially the frieze areas offered space for reliefs and relief slabs; the pedimental triangles often contained scenes of free-standing sculpture. In Archaic times, even the architrave could be relief-decorated on Ionic temples, as demonstrated by the earlier temple of Apollo at Didyma. Here, the architrave corners bore gorgons, surrounded by lions and perhaps other animals. On the other hand, the Ionic temples of Asia Minor did not possess a separate frieze to allow space for relief decoration. The most common area for relief decoration remained the frieze, either as a typical Doric triglyph frieze, with sculpted metopes, or as a continuous frieze on Cycladic and later on Eastern Ionic temples. Metopes The metopes, separate individual tableaux that could usually not contain more than three figures each, usually depicted individual scenes belonging to a broader context. It is rare for scenes to be distributed over several metopes; instead, a general narrative context, usually a battle, is created by the combination of multiple isolated scenes. Other thematical contexts could be depicted in this fashion. For example, the metopes at the front and back of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicted the Twelve Labours of Heracles. Individual mythological scenes, like the abduction of Europa or a cattle raid by the Dioscuri could be thus depicted, as could scenes from the voyage of the Argonauts or the Trojan War. The battles against the centaurs and Amazons, as well as the gigantomachy, all three depicted on the Parthenon, were recurring themes on many temples.

Part of the Parthenon Frieze, in situ on the west side of the naos.

Friezes Battle scenes of all kinds were also a common theme of Ionic friezes, e.g. the Gigantomachy on the temple of Hekate at Lagina, or the Amazonomachy on the temple of Artemis at Magnesia on the Maeander, both from the late 2nd century BC. Complex compositions visualised the back and forth of fighting for the viewer. Such scenes were contrasted by more quiet or peaceful ones: The Assembly of the gods and a procession dominate the 160 m long frieze that is placed on top of the naos walls of the Parthenon.
24

Reconstruction of the west pediment on the Parthenon, Athens, Acropolis Museum.

Pediments Special attention was paid to the decoration of the pedimental triangles, not least because of their size and frontal position. Originally, the pediments were filled with massive reliefs, e.g. shortly after 600 BC on the temple of Artemis at Kerkyra, where the west pediment is taken up by the gorgon Medusa and her children at the centre, flanked by panthers. Smaller scenes are displayed in the low corners of the pediments, e.g. Zeus with a thunderbolt, fighting a Giant. The pedimental sculpture of the first peripteral temple on the Athenian Acropolis, from circa 570 BC, is nearly free-standing sculpture, but remains dominated by a central scene of fighting lions.

Statue of Apollo from the west pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Again, the corners contain separate scenes, including Heracles fighting Triton. After the mid6th century BC, the compositional scheme changes: animal scenes are now placed in the corners, soon they disappear entirely. The central composition is now taken over by mythological fights or by rows of human figures. The high regard in which the Greeks held pedimental sculptures in demonstrated by the discovery of the sculptures from the Late Archaic temple of Apollo at Delphi, which had received a veritable burial after the temple's destruction in 373 BC.[22] The themes of the individual pedimental scenes are increasingly dominated by myths connected with the locality. Thus, the east pediment at Olympia depicts the preparations for a chariot race between Pelops and Oinomaos, the mythical king of nearby Pisa. It is the foundation myth of the sanctuary itself, displayed here in its most prominent position. A similarly direct association is provided by the birth of Athena on the east pediment of the Parthenon, or the struggle for Attica between her and Poseidon on its west pediment. The pediment of the later temple of the Kabeiroi at Samothrace, late 3rd century BC, depicted a probably purely local legend, of no major interest to Greece as a whole.
25

Mounted nereid; corner acroterion from the temple of Asklepios at Epidauros.

Roofs
Further information: List of Greco-Roman roofs

The roofs were crowned by acroteria, originally in the form of elaborately painted clay disks, from the 6th century BC onwards as fully sculpted figures placed on the corners and ridges of the pediments. They could depict bowls and tripods, griffins, spinxes, and especially mythical figures and deities. For example, depictions of the running Nike crowned the Alcmaeonid temple of Apollo at Delphi, and mounted amazons formed the corner akroteria of the temple of Asklepios in Epidauros. Pausanias (5, 10, 8) describes bronze tripods forming the corner akroteria and statues of Nike by Paeonios forming the ridge ones on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Columns For the sake of completeness, a further potential bearer of sculptural decoration should be mentioned here: the columnae celetae of the Ionic temples at Ephesos and Didyma. Here, already on the Archaic temples, the lower parts of the column shafts were decorated by protruding relief decorations, originally depicting rows of figures, replaced on their late Classical and Hellenistic successors with mythological scenes and battles. [23]

Function and design

Cult statue and cella

The functions of the temple mainly concentrated on the cella, the "dwelling" of the cult statue. The elaboration of the temple's external aspects served to stress the dignity of the cella. In contrast, the cella itself was often finished with some moderation. The only source of light for cella and cult statue was the cella's frontal door. Thus, the interior only received a limited amount of light. Exceptions are found in the temples of Apollo at Bassae and of Athena at Tegea, where the southern cella wall had a door, potentially allowing more light into the interior. A special situation applies to the temples of the Cyclades, where the roof
26

was usually of marble tiles. Marble roofs also covered the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon at Athens. As marble is not entirely opaque, those cellas may have been permeated with a distinctive diffused light. For cultic reasons, but also to use the light of the rising sun, virtually all Greek temples were oriented to the east. Some exceptions existed, e.g. the west-facing temples of Artemis at Ephesos and at Magnesia on the Maeander, or the north-south oriented temples of Arcadia. Such exceptions are probably connected with cult practice. Study of the soils around temple sites, is evidence that temple sites were chosen with regard to particular deities: for example, amid arable soils for the agricultural deities Dionysos and Demeter, and near rocky soils for the hunter gatherer deities Apollo and Artemis.[24]

Temple of Aphaia (Aegina): The interior of the cella was embellished with two tiers of Doric columns.

Refinements The cult statue was often oriented towards an altar, placed axially in front of the temple. To preserve this connection, the single row of columns often found along the central axis of the cella in early temples was replaced by two separate rows towards the sides. The central one of the three aisles thereby created was often emphasised as the main one. The dignity of the central aisle of the cella could be underlined by the use of special elements of design. For example, the oldest known Corinthian capitals are from the naoi of Doric temples. The impressiveness of the internal aisle could be emphasised further by having a third row of columns along the back, as is the case at the Parthenon and at the temple of Zeus in Nemea. The Parthenon cella, also had another impressive feature, namely two tiers of columns atop each other, as did the temple of Aphaia on Aegina. The temple of Athena at Tegea shows another variation, where the two column rows are indicated by half-columns protruding from the side walls and crowned with Corinthian capitals. An early form of this solution can be seen at Bassae, where the central column of the back portico remains free-stading, while the columns along the sides are in fact semi-columns connected with the walls by curved protrusions.

27

Plan and interior reconstruction of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae. Note the side entrance to the cella and the single Corinthian column.

Restricted access The cella of a Greek temple was entered only rarely and by very few visitors. Generally, entry to the room, except during important festivals or other special occasions, was limited to the priests. Sometimes, the divine character of the cult image was stressed even more by removing it further into a separate space within the cella, the adyton. Especially in Magna Graecia, this tradition continued for a long time. Over the decades and centuries, numerous votive offerings could be placed in the cella, giving it a museum-like character (Pausanias 5, 17).

Opisthodomos
The back room of the temple, the opisthodomos, usually served as a storage space for cult equipment. It could also hold the temple treasury. For some time, the opisthodomus of the Athenian Parthenon contained the treasury of the Delian League, thus directly protected by the deity. Pronaos and opisthodomos were often closed off from the peristasis by wooden barriers or fences.

Peristasis
Like the cella, the peristasis could serve the display and storage of votives, often placed between the columns. In some cases, votive offerings could also be directly affixed to the columns, as is visible e.g. on the Temple of Hera at Olympia. The peristasis could also be used for cult processions, or simply as shelter from the elements, a function emphasised by Vitruvius (III 3, 8f).

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Sponsors, construction and costs

Public and private sponsors

In the late 6th century, the Alcmaeonidae family strongly supported the rebuilding of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, so as to improve their standing in Athens and Greece.

The sponsors of Greek temples usually belonged to one of two groups: on the one hand public sponsors, including the bodies and institutions that administrated important sanctuaries; on the other hand influential and affluent private sponsors, especially Hellenistic kings. The financial needs were covered by income from taxes or special levies, or by the sale of raw materials like silver. The collection of donations also occurred, especially for supra-regional sanctuaries like Delphi or Olympia. Hellenistic monarchs could appear as private donors in cities outside their immediate sphere of influence and sponsor public buildings, as exemplified by Antiochos IV, who ordered the rebuilding of the Olympieion at Athens. In such cases, the money came from the private treasury of the donor. [25]

Organization
Building contracts were advertised after a popular or elected assembly had passed the relevant motion. An appointed committee would choose the winner among the submitted plans. Afterwards, another committee would supervise the building process. Its responsibilities included the advertising and awarding of individual contracts, the practical supervision of the construction, the inspection and acceptance of completed parts, and the paying of wages. The original advert contained all the information necessary to enable a contractor to make a realistic offer for completing the task. Contracts were normally awarded to the competitor offering the most complete service for the cheapest price. In the case of public buildings, the materials were normally provided by the public sponsor, exceptions were clarified in the contract. Contractors were usually only responsible for specific parts of the overall construction, as most businesses were small. Originally, payment was by person and day, but from the 5th century onwards, payment by piece or construction stage became common.[26]

Costs
The costs could be immense. For example, surviving receipts show that in the rebuilding of the Artemision of Ephesos, a single column cost 40,000 drachmas. Considering that a worker
29

was paid about two drachmas, that equals nearly 2 million Euro (on a modern west European wage scale). Since the overall number of columns required for the design was 120, even this aspect of the building would have caused costs equivalent to those of major projects today (circa 360 million Euro)[27]

Temples of the different architectural orders

One of the criteria by which Greek temples are classified is the Classical order chosen as their basic aesthetic principle. This choice, which was rarely entirely free, but normally determined by tradition and local habit, would lead to widely differing rules of design. According to the three major orders, a basic distinction can be made between the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian Temple.

Doric temples

The Temple of Hephaistos in Athens, the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece.

The modern image of Greek temple architecture is strongly influenced by the numerous reasonably well-preserved temples of the Doric order. Especially the ruins of Southern Italy and Sicily were accessible to western travellers quite early in the development of Classical studies, e.g. the temples at Paestum, Akragas or Segesta,[28] but the Hephaisteion and the Parthenon of Athens also influenced scholarship and Neoclassical architecture from an early point onwards. Beginnings The beginnings of Greek temple construction in the Doric order can be traced to early in the 7th century BC. With the transition to stone architecture around 600 BC, the order was fully developed; from then on, only details were changed, developed and refined, mostly in the context of solving the challenges posed by the design and construction of monumental temples. First monumental temples Apart from early forms, occasionally still with apsidal backs and hipped roofs, the first 100foot (30 m) peripteral temples occur quite soon, before 600 BC. An example is Temple C at Thermos, circa 625 BC,[29] a 100-foot-long (30 m) hekatompedos, surrounded by a peristasis of 5 x 15 columns, its cella divided in two aisles by a central row of columns. Its entirely
30

Doric entablature is indicated by painted clay plaques, probably early example of metopes, and clay triglyphs.[30] It appears to be the case that all temples erected within the spheres of influence of Corinth and Argos in the 7th century BC were Doric peripteroi. The earliest stone columns did not display the simple squatness of the high and late Archaic specimens, but rather mirror the slenderness of their wooden predecessors. Already around 600 BC, the demand of viewability from all sides was applied to the Doric temple, leading to the mirroring of the frontal pronaos by an opisthodomos at the back. This early demand continued to affect Doric temples especially in the Greek motherland. Neither the Ionic temples, nor the Doric specimens in Magna Graecia followed this principle[31] The increasing monumentalisation of stone buildings, and the transfer of the wooden roof construction to the level of the geison removed the fixed relationship between the naos and the peristasis. This relationship between the axes of walls and columns, almost a matter of course in smaller structures, remained undefined and without fixed rules for nearly a century: the position of the naos "floated" within the peristasis.

Doric capital in the Heraion of Olympia.

Stone-built temples
The Heraion at Olympia (c. 600 BC)

The Heraion of Olympia[32] (circa 600 BC) exemplifies the transition from wood to stone construction. This building, initially constructed entirely of wood and mudbrick, had its wooden columns gradually replaced with stone ones over time. Like a museum of Doric columns and Doric capitals, it contains examples of all chronological phases, up to the Roman period. One of the columns in the opisthodomos remained wooden at least until the 2nd century AD, when Pausanias described it. This 6 by 16 column temple already called for a solution to the Doric corner conflict. It was achieved through a reduction of the corner intercolumniations the so-called corner contraction. The Heraion is most advanced in regards to the relationship between naos and peristasis, as it uses the solution that became canonical decades later, a linear axis running along the external faces of the outer naos walls and through the central axis of the associated columns. Its differentiation between wider intercolumnia on the narrow sides and narrower ones on the long sides was also an influential feature, as was the positioning of the columns within the cella, corresponding with those on the outside, a feature not repeated until the construction of the temple at Bassae 150 years later.[33]
Temple of Artemis, Kerkyra (early 6th century)

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The oldest Doric temple entirely built of stone is represented by the early 6th century BC Artemis Temple in Kerkyra (modern Corfu).[34] All parts of this building are bulky and heavy, its columns reach a height of barely five times their bottom diameter and were very closely spaced with an intercolumniation of a single column width. The individual members of its Doric orders all differ considerably from the later canon, although all essential Doric features are present. Its ground plan of 8 by 17 columns, probably pseudoperipteral, is unusual.
Archaic Olympieion, Athens

Among the Doric temples, the Peisistratid Olympieion at Athens has a special position.[35] Although this building was never completed, its architect apparently attempted to adapt the Ionic dipteros. Column drums built into the later foundations indicate that it was originally planned as a Doric temple. Nonetheless, its ground plan follows the Ionic examples of Samos so closely that it would be hard to reconcile such a solution with a Doric triglyph frieze. After the expulsion of Hippias in 510 BC, work on this structure was stopped: Democratic Athens had no desire to continue a monument of tyrannical self-aggrandisation. Classical period: canonisation Apart from this exception and some examples in the more experimental poleis of Greater Greece, the Classical Doric temple type remained the peripteros. Its perfection was a priority of artistic endeavour throughout the Classical period.

Ruin of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Temple of Zeus, Olympia (460 BC)

The canonical solution was found fairly soon by the architect Libon of Elis, who erected the Temple of Zeus at Olympia around 460 BC. With its 6 x 13 columns or 5 x 12 intercolumniations, this temple was designed entirely rationally. Its column bays (axis to axis) measured 16 feet (4.9 m), a triglyph + metope 8 feet (2.4 m), a mutulus plus the adjacent space (via) 4 feet (1.2 m), the tile width of the marble roof was 2 feet (0.61 m). Its columns are powerful, with only a slight entasis; the echinus of the capitals is already nearly linear at 45. All of the superstructure is affected by curvature. The cella measures exactly 3 x 9 column distances (axis to axis), its external wall faces are aligned with the axes of the adjacent columns.
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Other canonical Classical temples

6 x 13 columns, the Classical proportion, is taken up by numerous temples, e.g. the Temple of Apollo on Delos (circa 470 BC), the Temple of Hephaistos at Athens and the temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion.[36] A slight variation, with 6 x 12 columns or 5 x 11 intercolumniations occurs as frequently.
The Parthenon (450 BC)

Plan of the Parthenon, note triple colonnade in the cella and pillared room at back.

The Parthenon[37] maintains the same proportion at a larger scale of 8 x 17 columns, but follows the same principles. In spite of the eight columns on its front, the temple is a pure peripteros, its external cella walls align with the axes of the 2nd and 7th columns. In other regards, the Parthenon is distinguished as an exceptional example among the mass of Greek peripteroi by many distinctive aesthetic solutions in detail. For example, the antae of pronaos

The Parthenon.

and opisthodomos are shortened so as to form simple pillars. Instead of longer antae, there are prostyle colonnades inside the peristasis on the front and back, reflecting Ionic habits. The execution of the naos, with a western room containing four columns, is also exceptional. The Parthenon's Archaic predecessor already contained such a room. All measurements in the Parthenon are determined by the proportion 4:9. It determines column width to column distance, width to length of the stylobate, and of the naos without
33

antae. The temple's width to height up to the geison is determined by the reverse proportion 9:4, the same proportion squared, 81:16, determines temple length to height. All of this mathematical rigour is relaxed and loosened by the optical refinements mentioned above, which affect the whole building, from layer to layer, and element to element. 92 sculpted metopes decorate its triglyph frieze: centauromachy, amazonomachy and gigantomachy are its themes. The external walls of the naos are crowned with a figural frieze surrounding the entire cella and depicting the Panathenaic procession as well as the Assembly of the Gods. Large format figures decorate the pediments on the narrow sides. This conjunction of strict principles and elaborate refinements makes the Parthenon the paradigmatic Classical temple. The Temple of Hephaistos at Athens, erected shortly after the Parthenon, uses the same aesthetic and proportional principles, without adhering as closely to the 4:9 proportion.[38]

The temple of Zeus at Nemea.

Late Classical and Hellenistic: changing proportions In the 4th century BC, a few Doric temples were erected with 6 x 15 or 6 x 14 columns, probably referring to local Archaic predecessors, e.g. the Temple of Zeus in Nemea[39] and that of Athena in Tegea.[40] Generally, Doric temples followed a tendency to become lighter in their superstructures. Columns became narrower, intercolumniations wider. This shows a growing adjustment to the proportion and weight of Ionic temples, mirrored by a progressive tendency among Ionic temples to become somewhat heavier. In the light of this mutual influence it is not surprising that in the late 4th century BC temple of Zeus at Nemea, the front is emphasised by a pronaos two intercolumniations deep, while the opisthodomos is suppressed.[41] Frontality is a key feature of Ionic temples. The emphasis on the pronaos already occurred in the slightly older temple of Athena at Tegea, but there it was repeated in the opisthodomos. Both temples continued the tendency towards more richly equipped interiors, in both cases with engaged or full columns of the Corinthian order.

34

The increasing reduction of the number of columns along the long sides, clearly visible on Ionic temples, is mirrored in Doric constructions. A small temple at Kourn has a peristasis of merely 6 x 7 columns, a stylobate of only 8 x 10 m and corners executed as pilasters towards the front.[42] The peristasis of monumental Doric temples is merely hinted at here; the function as a simple canopy for the shrine of the sult statue is clear Doric temples in Magna Graecia

Temple of Apollo at Paestum.

Sicily and Southern Italy hardly participated in these developments. Here, most temple construction took place during the 6th and 5th centuries BC.[43] Later, the Western Greeks showed a pronounced tendency to develop unusual architectural solutions, more or less unthinkable in the mother poleis of their colonies. For example, there are two examples of temples with uneven column numbers at the front, Temple of Hera I at Paestum[31] and Temple of Apollo A at Metapontum.[44] Both temples had fronts of nine columns.

Temple G, Selinus, with well-defined adyton.

The technical possibilities of the western Greeks, which had progressed beyond those in the motherland, permitted many deviations. For example, innovations regarding the construction of the entablature developed in the west allowed the spanning of much wider spaces than before, leading to some very deep peristaseis and broad naoi. The peristasis often had a depth of two column distances, e.g. at Temple of Hera I, Paestum, and temples C, F and G at Selinus,[45] classifying them as pseudodipteroi. The opisthodomos only played a subsidiary role, but did occur sometimes, e.g. at the temple of Poseidon in Paestum. Much more frequently, the temples included a separate room at the back end of the cella, entrance to which was usually forbidden, the adyton. In some cases, the adyton was a free35

standing structure within the cella, e.g. temple G in Selinus. If possible, columns inside the cella were avoided, allowing for open roof constructions of up to 13 m width.

Model of the Olympieion at Akragas.

The largest such structure was the Olympieion of Akragas, an 8 x 17 column peripteros, but in many regards an absolutely "un-Greek" structure, equipped with details such as engaged, figural pillars (Telamons), and a peristasis partially closed off by walls.[46] With external dimensions of 56 x 113 m, it was the largest Doric building ever to be completed. If the colonies showed remarkable independence and will to experiment in basic terms, they did so even more in terms of detail. For example, the lower surfaces of Doric geisa could be decorated with coffers instead of mutuli. Although a strong tendency to emphasize the front, e.g. through the addition of ramps or stairs with up to eight steps (at Temple C in Selinus), or a pronaos depth of 3.5 column distances (temple of Apollo at Syracuse)[47] had been become a key principle of design, this was relativised by the broadening of column distances on the long sides, e.g. Temple of Hera I at Paestum. Only in the colonies could the Doric corner conflict be ignored. If South Italian architects tried to solve it, they used a variety of solutions: broadening of the corner metopes or triglyphs, variation of column distance or metopes. In some cases, different solutions were used on the broad and narrow sides of the same building.

Typical proportions of the Ionic order. 36

Ionic temples
Origins For the early period, before the 6th century BC, the term Ionic temple can, at best, designate a temple in the Ionian areas of settlement. No fragments of architecture belonging to the Ionic order have been found from this time. Nonetheless, some early temples in the area already indicate the rational system that was to characterise the Ionic system later on, e.g. the Heraion II of Samos.[48] Thus, even at an early point, the axes of the cella walls aligned with the column axes, whereas in Doric architecture, the external wall faces do so. The early temples also show no concern for the typical Doric feature of viewability from all sides, they regularly lack an opisthodomos; the peripteros only became widespread in the area in the 4th century BC. In contrast, from an early point, Ionic temples stress the front by using double porticos. Elongated peristaseis became a determining element. At the same time, the Ionic temples were characterised by their tendency to use varied and richly decorated surfaces, as well as the widespread use of light-shade contrasts. Monumental Ionic temples
The Heraion of Samos

As soon as the Ionic order becomes recognisable in temple architecture, it is increased to monumental sizes. The temple in the Heraion of Samos, erected by Rhoikos around 560 BC, is the first known dipteros, with outside dimensions of 52 x 105 m.[49] A double portico of 8 x 21 columns enclosed the naos, the back even had ten columns. The front used differing column distances, with a wider central opening. In proportion to the bottom diameter, the columns reached three times the height of a Doric counterpart. 40 flutings enriched the complex surface structure of the column shafts. Samian column bases were decorated with a sequence of horizontal flutings, but in spite of this playfulness they weighed 1,500 kg a piece. The capitals of this structure were probably still entirely of wood, as was the entablature. Ionic volute capitals survive from the outer peristasis of the later rebuilding by Polycrates. The columns of the inner peristasis had leaf decoration and no volutes.
Cycladic Ionic

In the Cyclades, there were early temples entirely built of marble. Volute capitals have not been found associated with these, but their marble entablatures belonged to the Ionic order.[50]
The Artemision of Ephesos

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Plan of the Artemision at Ephesos.

Roughly beginning with the erection of the older Artemision of Ephesos around 550 BC[51] the quantity of archaeological remains of Ionic temples increases. The Artemision was planned as a dipteros, its architect Theodoros had been one of the builders of the Samian Heraion. With a substructure of 55 x 115 m, the Artemision outscaled all precedents. Its cella was exceuted as unroofed internal peristyle courtyard, the so-called sekos. The building was entirely of marble. The temple was considered as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which may be justified, considering the efforts involved in its construction.

Columna caelata from the Artemision.

The columns stood on ephesian bases, 36 of them were decorated with life-sized friezes of human figures at the bottom of the shaft, the so-called columnae caelatae.[52] The columns had between 40 and 48 flutings, some of them cut to alternate between a wider and a narrower fluting. The oldest marble architraves of Greek architecture, found at the Artemision, also spanned the widest distances ever achieved in pure stone. The middle architrave block was 8.74 m long and weighed 24 metric tons; it had to be lifted to its final position, 20 m above ground, with a system of pulleys. Like its precedents, the temple used differentiated column widths in the front, and had a higher number of columns at the back. According to ancient sources, Kroisos was one of the sponsors. An inscription referring to his sponsorship was indeed found on one of the columns. The temple was burnt down by Herostratos in 356 BC and reerected soon thereafter. For the replacement, a crepidoma of
38

ten or more steps was erected. Older Ionic temples normally lacked a specific visible substructure. This emphasised basis had to be balanced out be a heightened entablature, producing not only a visual contrast to, but also a major weight upon the slender columns.
Temple of Apollo at Didyma

Remains of the temple of Apollo at Didyma.

The temple of Apollo at Didyma near Miletus, begun around 540 BC, was another dipteros with open internal courtyard[53] The interior was structured with powerful pilasters, their rhythm reflecting that of the external peristasis. The columns, with 36 flutings, were executed as columnae caelatae with figural decoration, like those at Ephesos. Construction ceased around 500 BC, but was restarted in 331 BC and finally completed in the 2nd century BC. The enormous costs involved may have been one of the reasons for the long period of construction. The building was the first Ionic temple to follow the Attic tradition of uniform column distances, the frontal diffentiation was not practised any more.
Temple of Athena Polias, Priene

Ruins of the temple of Athena at Priene

Ionic peripteroi were usually somewhat smaller and shorter in their dimensions than Doric ones. E.g., the temple of Zeus at Labraunda had only 6 8 columns,[54] the temple of Aphrodite in Samothrace only 6 9.[55] The temple of Athena Polias at Priene,[56] already considered in antiquity as the classical example of an Ionic temple, has partially survived. It was the first monumental peripteros of Ionia, erected between 350 and 330 BC by Pytheos. It is based on a 6-by-6-foot (1.8 m 1.8 m) grid (the exact dimensions of its plinths). The temple had 6 11 columns, i.e. a proportion of 5:10 or 1:2 intercolumnia. Walls and
39

columns were aligned axially, according to Ionic tradition. The peristasis was of equal depth on all sides, eliminating the usual emphasis on the front, an opisthodomos, integrated into the back of the cella, is the first proper example in Ionic architecture. The evident rationalmathematical aspect to the design suits Ionic Greek culture, with its strong tradition of natural philosophy. Pytheos was to be of major influence far beyond his lifetime. Hermogenes, who probably came from Priene, was a deserving successor [according to whom?] and achieved the final flourish of Ionic architecture around 200 BC.
The Artemision of Magnesia

Capital from the Artemision of Magnesia on the Maeander (Berlin, Pergamonmuseum).

One of the projects led by Hermogenes was the Artemision of Magnesia on the Maeander, one of the first pseudodipteroi.[57] (other early pseudodipteroi include the temple of Aphrodite at Messa on Lesbos, belonging to the age of Hermogenes or earlier,[58] the temple of Apollo Sminthaios on Chryse[59] and the temple of Apollo at Alabanda.[60] The arrangement of the pseudodipteros, omitting the interior row of columns while maintaining a peristasis with the width of two column distances, produces a massively broadened portico, comparable to the contemporaneous hall architecture. The grid of the temple of Magnesia was based on a 12-by-12-foot (3.7 m 3.7 m) square. The peristasis was surrounded by 8 15 columns or 7 14 intercolumnia, i.e. a 1:2 proportion. The naos consisted of a pronaos of four column depths, a four column cella, and a 2 column opisthodomos. Above the architrave of the peristasis, there was a figural frieze of 137 m length, depicting the amazonomachy. Above it lay the dentil, the Ionic geison and the sima.

The Erechtheion at Athens.

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Attic Ionic

Although Athens and Attica were also ethnically Ionian, the Ionic order was of minor importance in this area. The Temple of Nike Aptera on the Acropolis, a small amphiprostyle temple completed around 420 BC, with Ionic columns on plinthless Attic bases, a triplelayered architrave and a figural frieze, but without the typical Ionic dentil, is notable. The east and north halls of the Erechtheion, completed in 406 BC, follow the same succession of elements.
Epidauros

An innovative Ionic temple was that of Asklepios in Epidaurus, one of the first of the pseudoperipteros type. This small ionic prostyle temple had engaged columns along the sides and back, the peristasis was thus reduced to a mere hint of a full portico facade. [61]
Magna Graecia

There is very little evidence of Ionic temples in Magna Graecia. One of the few exceptions is the early Classical Temple D, an 8 x 20 columnn peripteros, at Metapontum. Its architect combined the dentil, typical of Asia Minor, with an Attic frieze, thus proving that the colonies were quite capable of partaking in the developments of the motherland. [62] A small Ionic Hellenistic prostyle temple was found on the Poggetto San Nicola at Agrigento.

Corinthian temples

The Olympieion at Athens.

Beginnings The youngest of the three Classical Greek orders, the Corinthian order came to be used for the external design of Greek temples quite late. After it had proved its adequacy, e.g. on a mausoleum of at modern-day Belevi (near Ephesos), it appears to have found increasing popularity in the 2nd half of the 3rd century BC. Early examples probably include the Serapeum of Alexandria and a temple at Hermopolis Magna, both erected by Ptolemaios III. A small temple of Athena Limnastis at Messene, definitely Corinthian, is only attested through drawings by early travellers and very scarce fragments. It probably dates to the late 3rd century BC.[63] Examples
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Hellenistic Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens

The first dateable and well-preserved presence of the Corinthian temple is the Hellenistic rebuilding of the Olympieion of Athens, planned and started between 175 and 146 BC. This mighty dipteros with its 110 44 m substructure and 8 20 columns was to be one of the largest Corinthian temples ever. Donated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, it combined all elements of the asian/Ionic order with the Corinthian capital. Its Asian elements and its conception as a dipteros made the temple an exception in Athens.[64]
Olba

Around the middle of the 2nd century BC, a 6 12 column Corinthian peripteros was built in Olba-Diokaisarea in Rugged Cilicia.[65] Its columns, mostly still upright, stand on Attic bases without plinths, exceptional for the period. The 24 flutings of the columns are only indicated by facets in the lower third. Each of the Corinthian capitals is made of three separate parts, an exceptional form. The entablature of the temple was probably in the Doric order, as is suggested by fragments of mutuli scattered among the ruins. All of these details suggest an Alexandrian workshop, since Alexandria showed the greatest tendency to combine Doric entablatures with Corinthian capitals and to do without the plinth under Attic bases. [66]
Temple of Hekate at Lagina

A further plan option is shown by the temple of Hekate at Lagina, a small pseudoperipteros of 8 11 columns.[67] Its architectural members are entirely in keeping with the Asian/Ionic canon. Its distinctive feature, a rich figural frieze, makes this building, erected around 100 BC, an architectural gem. Further late Greek temples in the Corinthian order are known e.g. at Mylasa[68] and, on the middle gymnasium terrace at Pergamon.[69] Distinctive uses of Corinthian temples, influence

The Maison Carre at Nmes (France), from 16 BC, a typical Roman temple, is a Corinthian hexaystyle pseudoperipteros.

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Pandyan Kingdom coin depicting a temple between hill symbols and elephant, Pandyas, Sri Lanka, 1st century CE.

The few Greek temples in the Corinthian order are almost always exceptional in form or ground plan and are initially usually an expression of royal patronage. The Corinthian order permitted a considerable increase of the material and technical effort invested in a building, which made its use attractive for the purposes of royals self-aggrandisement. The demise of the Hellenistic monarchies and the increasing power of Rome and her allies placed mercantile elites and sanctuary administrations in the positions of building sponsors. The construction of Corinthian temples became a typical expression of self-confidence and independence.[70] As an element of Roman architecture, the Corinthian temple came to be widely distributed in all of the Graeco-Roman world, especially in Asia Minor, until the late Imperial period.

Acropolis
An acropolis (Greek: ; akros, akron,[1] edge, extremity + polis, city; plural: acropoleis or acropolises) is a settlement, especially a citadel, built upon an area of elevated groundfrequently a hill with precipitous sides, chosen for purposes of defense. In many parts of the world, acropoleis became the nuclei of large cities of classical antiquity, such as ancient Rome, which in more recent times grew up on the surrounding lower ground, such as modern Rome.

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The Acropolis of Athens as seen from Mount Lycabettus (northeast). The wooded Hill of the Nymphs is half-visible on its right, and Philopappos Hill on the left, immediately behind. Philopappos Monument stands where, in the distant background, the coast of Peloponnese meet the waters of the Saronic Gulf. The word acropolis literally in Greek means "city on the extremity" and though associated primarily with the Greek cities Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth (with its Acrocorinth), may be applied generically to all such citadels, including Rome, Jerusalem, Celtic Bratislava, many in Asia Minor, or even Castle Rock in Edinburgh. An example in Ireland is the Rock of Cashel. Acropolis is also the term used by archaeologists and historians to the urban Castro culture settlements located in Northwestern Iberian hilltops. The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens,[2] which, by reason of its historical associations and the several famous buildings erected upon it (most notably the Parthenon), is known without qualification as the Acropolis. Although originating in the mainland of Greece, use of the acropolis model quickly spread to Greek colonies such as the Dorian Lato on Crete during the Archaic Period. Because of its classical Greco-Roman style, the ruins of Mission San Juan Capistrano's Great Stone Church in California, United States has been called the "American Acropolis".[citation
needed]

Other parts of the world developed other names for the high citadel or alczar, which often reinforced a naturally strong site. In Central Italy, many small rural communes still cluster at the base of a fortified habitation known as La Rocca of the commune. The term acropolis is also used to describe the central complex of overlapping structures, such as plazas and pyramids, in many Maya cities, including Tikal and Copn.

Agora
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the ancient marketplace. For other uses, see Agora (disambiguation).

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Stoa of the ancient agora of Thessaloniki

Agora of Tyre

The agora (Ancient Greek: , Agor) was a central spot in ancient Greek city-states. The literal meaning of the word is "gathering place" or "assembly". The agora was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the city. [1] The Ancient Agora of Athens was the best-known example, birthplace of democracy.

Origins
Early in Greek history (10th century8th century BC), free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the agora for military duty or to hear statements of the ruling king or council. Later, the agora also served as a marketplace where merchants kept stalls or shops to sell their goods amid colonnades. From this twin function of the agora as a political and commercial space came the two Greek verbs , agorz, "I shop", and , agore, "I speak in public". The word agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces or public situations, derives from the meaning of agora as a gathering place. The Forum was the Roman equivalent of the agora and the word is often used in older texts to refer to Greek agoras. The pattern of the agora, is still present in the vast majority of all Mediterranean social and urban structures. This main square tends to be heavily used all year round. This in contrast with, for example, colder places in Europe due to weather conditions. Stoa (/sto/; plural, stoas,[1] stoai,[1] or stoae /sto.i/[2]) in ancient Greek architecture; covered walkways or porticos, commonly for public usage. Early stoas were open at the
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entrance with columns, usually of the Doric order, lining the side of the building; they created a safe, enveloping, protective atmosphere. Later examples were built as two stories, with a roof supporting the inner colonnades where shops or sometimes offices were located. They followed Ionic architecture. These buildings were open to the public; merchants could sell their goods, artists could display their artwork, and religious gatherings could take place. Stoas usually surrounded the marketplaces of large cities.

The name of the Stoic school of philosophy derives from "stoa".

Theatre of ancient Greece

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Ancient Greek theatre) Jump to: navigation, search For other uses of "Greek Theatre", see Greek theatre (disambiguation).

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Theatre mask, 1st century BC [show]

v t e

History of theatre
The theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between 550 BC and 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honoured the god Dionysus. Tragedy (late 6th century BC), comedy (486 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies and allies in order to promote a common cultural identity.

47

Contents

1 Etymology 2 Origins 3 New inventions during the Classical Period 4 Hellenistic period 5 Characteristics of the buildings o 5.1 Scenic elements o 5.2 Masks 5.2.1 Masks and ritual 5.2.2 Mask details 5.2.3 Mask functions 5.2.4 Other costume details 6 See also 7 References 8 Additional Literature 9 External links

Etymology
The word (tragoidia), from which the word "tragedy" is derived, is a compound of two Greek words: (tragos) or "goat" and (ode) meaning "song", from (aeidein), "to sing".[1] This etymology indicates a link with the practices of the ancient Dionysian cults. It is impossible, however, to know with certainty how these fertility rituals became the basis for tragedy and comedy. [2]

Origins
Main article: Greek tragedy

Martin Litchfield West speculates that early studies in Greek religion and theatre, which are inter-related, especially the Orphic Mysteries, was heavily influenced by Central Asian shamanistic practices. A large number of Orphic graffiti unearthed in Olbia seem to testify that the colony was one major point of contact.[3] Eli Rozik[4] points out that the shaman, as such, is seen as a prototypical actor influencing the rituals of early Greek theatre. [5]

Panoramic view of the theatre at Epidaurus.

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Greek tragedy as we know it was created in Athens around the time of 532 BC, when Thespis was the earliest recorded actor. Being a winner of the first theatrical contest held at Athens, he was the exarchon, or leader,[6] of the dithyrambs performed in and around Attica, especially at the rural Dionysia. By Thespis' time the dithyramb had evolved far away from its cult roots. Under the influence of heroic epic, Doric choral lyric and the innovations of the poet Arion, it had become a narrative, ballad-like genre. Because of these, Thespis is often called the "Father of Tragedy"; however, his importance is disputed, and Thespis is sometimes listed as late as 16th in the chronological order of Greek tragedians; the statesman Solon, for example, is credited with creating poems in which characters speak with their own voice, and spoken performances of Homer's epics by rhapsodes were popular in festivals prior to 534 BC.[7] Thus, Thespis's true contribution to drama is unclear at best, but his name has been immortalized as a common term for performera "thespian." The dramatic performances were important to the Athenians this is made clear by the creation of a tragedy competition and festival in the City Dionysia. This was organized possibly to foster loyalty among the tribes of Attica (recently created by Cleisthenes). The festival was created roughly around 508 BC. While no drama texts exist from the sixth century BC, we do know the names of three competitors besides Thespis: Choerilus, Pratinas, and Phrynichus. Each is credited with different innovations in the field. More is known about Phrynichus. He won his first competition between 511 BC and 508 BC. He produced tragedies on themes and subjects later exploited in the golden age such as the Danaids, Phoenician Women and Alcestis. He was the first poet we know of to use a historical subject his Fall of Miletus, produced in 493-2, chronicled the fate of the town of Miletus after it was conquered by the Persians. Herodotus reports that "the Athenians made clear their deep grief for the taking of Miletus in many ways, but especially in this: when Phrynichus wrote a play entitled The Fall of Miletus and produced it, the whole theatre fell to weeping; they fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for bringing to mind a calamity that affected them so personally, and forbade the performance of that play forever." [8] He is also thought to be the first to use female characters (though not female performers). [9] Until the Hellenistic period, all tragedies were unique pieces written in honour of Dionysus and played only once, so that today we primarily have the pieces that were still remembered well enough to have been repeated when the repetition of old tragedies became fashionable (the accidents of survival, as well as the subjective tastes of the Hellenistic librarians later in Greek history, also played a role in what survived from this period).

New inventions during the Classical Period

After the Great Destruction of Athens by the Persian Empire in 485 BC, the town and acropolis were rebuilt, and theatre became formalized and an even greater part of Athenian culture and civic pride. This century is normally regarded as the Golden Age of Greek drama. The centre-piece of the annual Dionysia, which took place once in winter and once in spring, was a competition between three tragic playwrights at the Theatre of Dionysus. Each submitted three tragedies, plus a satyr play (a comic, burlesque version of a mythological subject). Beginning in a first competition in 486 BC, each playwright also submitted a comedy.[10] Aristotle claimed that Aeschylus added the second actor, and that Sophocles
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introduced the third. Apparently the Greek playwrights never used more than three actors based on what is known about Greek theatre.[11] Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres, and no plays ever merged aspects of the two. Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject matter of the tragedies, but in a purely comedic manner.

Hellenistic period
The power of Athens declined following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans. From that time on, the theatre started performing old tragedies again. Although its theatrical traditions seem to have lost their vitality, Greek theatre continued into the Hellenistic period (the period following Alexander the Great's conquests in the fourth century BC). However, the primary Hellenistic theatrical form was not tragedy but 'New Comedy', comic episodes about the lives of ordinary citizens. The only extant playwright from the period is Menander. One of New Comedy's most important contributions was its influence on Roman comedy, an influence that can be seen in the surviving works of Plautus and Terence.

Characteristics of the buildings

The Ancient Theatre of Delphi.

The plays had a chorus from 12 to 15[12] people, who performed the plays in verse accompanied by music, beginning in the morning and lasting until the evening. The performance space was a simple circular space, the orchestra, where the chorus danced and sang. The orchestra, which had an average diameter of 78 feet, was situated on a flattened terrace at the foot of a hill, the slope of which produced a natural theatron, literally "watching place". Later, the term "theater" came to be applied to the whole area of theatron, orchestra, and sken. The choregos was the head chorus member who could enter the story as a character able to interact with the characters of a play.
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A drawing of an ancient theatre. Terms are in Greek language and Latin letters.

The theatres were originally built on a very large scale to accommodate the large number of people on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience, up to fourteen thousand. Mathematics played a large role in the construction of these theatres, as their designers had to be able to create acoustics in them such that the actors' voices could be heard throughout the theatre, including the very top row of seats. The Greeks' understanding of acoustics compares very favourably with the current state of the art. The first seats in Greek theatres (other than just sitting on the ground) were wooden, but around 499 BC the practice of inlaying stone blocks into the side of the hill to create permanent, stable seating became more common. They were called the "prohedria" and reserved for priests and a few most respected citizens. In 465 BC, the playwrights began using a backdrop or scenic wall, which hung or stood behind the orchestra, which also served as an area where actors could change their costumes. It was known as the skn (from which the word "scene" derives). The death of a character was always heard behind the skn, for it was considered inappropriate to show a killing in view of the audience.[citation needed] Though there is scholarly argument that death in Greek tragedy was portrayed off stage primarily because of dramatic considerations, and not prudishness or sensitivity of the audience. [13] In 425 BC a stone scene wall, called a paraskenia, became a common supplement to skn in the theatres. A paraskenia was a long wall with projecting sides, which may have had doorways for entrances and exits. Just behind the paraskenia was the proskenion. The proskenion ("in front of the scene") was beautiful, and was similar to the modern day proscenium. Greek theatres also had tall arched entrances called parodoi or eisodoi, through which actors and chorus members entered and exited the orchestra. By the end of the 5th century BC, around the time of the Peloponnesian War, the skn, the back wall, was two stories high. The upper story was called the episkenion. Some theatres also had a raised speaking place on the orchestra called the logeion.

Structure
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Column and lintel

Parts of an Ancient Greek temple of the Doric Order: 1. Tympanum, 2. Acroterium, 3. Sima 4. Cornice 5. Mutules 7. Freize 8. Triglyph 9. Metope 10. Regula 11. Gutta 12. Taenia 13. Architrave 14. Capital 15. Abacus 16. Echinus 17. Column 18. Fluting 19. Stylobate

The architecture of Ancient Greece is of a trabeated or "post and lintel" form, i.e. it is composed of upright beams (posts) supporting horizontal beams (lintels). Although the existent buildings of the era are constructed in stone, it is clear that the origin of the style lies in simple wooden structures, with vertical posts supporting beams which carried a ridged roof. The posts and beams divided the walls into regular compartments which could be left as openings, or filled with sun dried bricks, lathes or straw and covered with clay daub or plaster. Alternately, the spaces might be filled with rubble. It is likely that many early houses and temples were constructed with an open porch or "pronaos" above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment.[7] The earliest temples, built to enshrine statues of deities, were probably of wooden construction, later replaced by the more durable stone temples many of which are still in evidence today. The signs of the original timber nature of the architecture were maintained in the stone buildings.[23]
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A few of these temples are very large, with several, such as the Temple of Zeus Olympus and the Olympieion at Athens being well over 300 feet in length, but most were less than half this size. It appears that some of the large temples began as wooden constructions in which the columns were replaced piecemeal as stone became available. This, at least was the interpretation of the historian Pausanias looking at the Temple of Hera at Olympia in the 2nd century AD.[2] The stone columns are made of a series of solid stone cylinders or drums that rest on each other without mortar, but were sometimes centred with a bronze pin. The columns are wider at the base than at the top, tapering with an outward curve known as entasis. Each column has a capital of two parts, the upper, on which rests the lintels, being square and called the abacus. The part of the capital that rises from the column itself is called the echinus. It differs according to the order, being plain in the Doric Order, fluted in the Ionic and foliate in the Corinthian. Doric and usually Ionic capitals are cut with vertical grooves known as fluting. This fluting or grooving of the columns is a retention of an element of the original wooden architecture.[23] Entablature and pediment The columns of a temple support a structure that rises in two main stages, the entablature and the pediment. The entablature is the major horizontal structural element supporting the roof and encircling the entire building. It is composed by three parts. Resting on the columns is the architrave made of a series of stone lintels that spanned the space between the columns, and meet each other at a joint directly above the centre of each column. Above the architrave is a second horizontal stage called the frieze. The frieze is one of the major decorative elements of the building and carries a sculptured relief. In the case of Ionic and Corinthian architecture, the relief decoration runs in a continuous band, but in the Doric Order, it is divided into sections called metopes which fill the spaces between vertical rectangular blocks called triglyphs. The triglyphs are vertically grooved like the Doric columns, and retain the form of the wooden beams that would once have supported the roof. The upper band of the entablature is called the cornice, which is generally ornately decorated on its lower edge. The cornice retains the shape of the beams that would once have supported the wooden roof at each end of the building. At the front and back of each temple, the entablature supports a triangular structure called the pediment. The triangular space framed by the cornices is the location of the most significant sculptural decoration on the exterior of the building. Masonry Every temple rested on a masonry base called the crepidoma, generally of three steps, of which the upper one which carried the columns was the stylobate. Masonry walls were employed for temples from about 600 BC onwards. Masonry of all types was used for Ancient Greek buildings, including rubble, but the finest ashlar masonry was usually employed for temple walls, in regular courses and large sizes to minimise the joints. [7] The
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blocks were rough hewn and hauled from quarries to be cut and bedded very precisely, with mortar hardly ever being used. Blocks, particularly those of columns and parts of the building bearing loads were sometimes fixed in place or reinforced with iron clamps, dowels and rods of wood, bronze or iron fixed in lead to minimise corrosion.[4] Openings Door and window openings were spanned with a lintel, which in a stone building limited the possible width of the opening. The distance between columns was similarly affected by the nature of the lintel, columns on the exterior of buildings and carrying stone lintels being closer together than those on the interior, which carried wooden lintels. [24][25] Door and window openings narrowed towards the top.[25] Temples were constructed without windows, the light to the naos entering through the door. It has been suggested that some temples were lit from openings in the roof.[24] A door of the Ionic Order at the Erechtheion, (17 feet high and 7.5 feet wide at the top), retains many of its features intact, including mouldings, and an entablature supported on console brackets. (See Architectural Decoration,
below)
[25][26][27]

Structure, masonry, openings and roof of Greek temples

The Parthenon, shows the common structural features of Ancient Greek architecture: crepidoma, columns, entablature, pediment.

Temple of Hephaestos, fluted Doric columns with abacuses supporting double beams of the architrave

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Erechtheion: masonry, door, stone lintels, coffered ceiling panels

At the Temple of Aphaia the hypostyle columns rise in two tiers, to a height greater than the walls, to support a roof without struts.

Roof
Further information: List of Greco-Roman roofs

The widest span of a temple roof was across the cella, or internal space. In a large building, this space contains columns to support the roof, the architectural form being known as hypostyle. It appears that, although the architecture of Ancient Greece was initially of wooden construction, the early builders did not have the concept of the diagonal truss as a stabilising member. This is evidenced by the nature of temple construction in the 6th century BC, where the rows of columns supporting the roof the cella rise higher than the outer walls, unnecessary if roof trusses are employed as an integral part of the wooden roof. The indication is that initially all the rafters were supported directly by the entablature, walls and hypostyle, rather than on a trussed wooden frame, which came into use in Greek architecture only in the 3rd century BC.[7] Ancient Greek buildings of timber, clay and plaster construction were probably roofed with thatch. With the rise of stone architecture came the appearance of fired ceramic roof tiles. These early roof tiles showed an S-shape, with the pan and cover tile forming one piece. They were much larger than modern roof tiles, being up to 90 cm (35.43 in) long, 70 cm (27.56 in) wide, 34 cm (1.181.57 in) thick and weighing around 30 kg apiece.[28][29] Only stone walls, which were replacing the earlier mudbrick and wood walls, were strong enough to support the weight of a tiled roof.[30]

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The earliest finds of roof tiles of the Archaic period in Greece are documented from a very restricted area around Corinth, where fired tiles began to replace thatched roofs at the temples of Apollo and Poseidon between 700 and 650 BC.[31] Spreading rapidly, roof tiles were within fifty years in evidence for a large number of sites around the Eastern Mediterranean, including Mainland Greece, Western Asia Minor, Southern and Central Italy.[31] Being more expensive and labour-intensive to produce than thatch, their introduction has been explained by the fact that their fireproof quality would have given desired protection to the costly temples.[31] As a side-effect, it has been assumed that the new stone and tile construction also ushered in the end of overhanging eaves in Greek architecture, as they made the need for an extended roof as rain protection for the mudbrick walls obsolete.[30] Vaults and arches were not generally used, but begin to appear in tombs (in a "beehive" or cantilevered form such as used in Mycenaea) and occasionally, as an external feature, exedrae of voussoired construction from the 5th century BC. The dome and vault never became significant structural features, as they were to become in Ancient Roman architecture.[7] Temple plans

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Plans of Ancient Greek Temples Top: 1. distyle in antis, 2. amphidistyle in antis, 3. tholos, 4. prostyle tetrastyle, 5. amphiprostyle tetrastyle, Bottom: 6. dipteral octastyle, 7. peripteral hexastyle, 8. pseudoperipteral hexastyle, 9. pseudodipteral octastyle

Most Ancient Greek temples were rectangular, and were approximately twice as long as they were wide, with some notable exceptions such as the enormous Temple of Zeus Olympus in Athens with a length of nearly 2 1/2 times its width. The majority of Temples were small, being 30100 feet long, while a few were large, being over 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. The iconic Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis occupies a midpoint at 235 feet long by 109 feet wide. A number of surviving temple-like structures are circular, and are referred to as tholos.[32] The temple rises from a stepped base or "stylobate", which elevated the structure above the ground on which it stood. Early examples, such as the Temple of Zeus at Olympus, have two steps, but the majority, like the Parthenon, have three, with the exceptional example of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma having six.[32] The core of the building is a masonry-built "naos" within which was a cella, a windowless room which housed the statue of the god. The cella generally had a porch or "pronaos" before it, and perhaps a second chamber or "antenaos" serving as a treasury or repository for trophies and gifts. The chambers were lit by a single large doorway, fitted with a wrought iron grill. Some rooms appear to have been illuminated by skylights.[24] On the stylobate, often completely surrounding the naos, stood rows of columns. Each temple was defined as being of a particular type, with two terms: one describing the number of columns across the entrance front, and the other defining their distribution. [32] Examples:

Distyle in antis describes a small temple with two columns at the front, which are set between the projecting walls of the pronaos or porch, like the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus. (see left, figure 1.) [32] Amphiprostyle tetrastyle describes a small temple that has columns at both ends which stand clear of the naos. Tetrastyle indicates that the columns are four in number, like those of the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens. (figure 4.) [32] Peripteral hexastyle describes a temple with a single row of peripheral columns around the naos, with six columns across the front, like the Theseion in Athens. (figure 7.) [32] Peripteral octastyle describes a temple with a single row of columns around the naos, (figure [32] 7.) with eight columns across the front, like the Parthenon, Athens. (figs. 6 and 9.) Dipteral decastyle describes the huge temple of Apollo at Didyma, with the naos surrounded by a double row of columns, (figure 6.) with ten columns across the entrance front.[32] The Temple of Zeus Olympius at Agrigentum, is termed Pseudo-periteral heptastyle, because its encircling colonnade has pseudo columns that are attached to the walls of the naos. [32] (figure 8.) Heptastyle means that it has seven columns across the entrance front.

Proportion and optical illusion The ideal of proportion that was used by Ancient Greek architects in designing temples was not a simple mathematical progression using a square module. The math involved a more
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complex geometrical progression, the so-called Golden mean. The ratio is similar to that of the growth patterns of many spiral forms that occur in nature such as rams' horns, nautilus shells, fern fronds, and vine tendrils and which were a source of decorative motifs employed by Ancient Greek architects as particularly in evidence in the volutes of capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders.[33]

The Ancient Greek architects took a philosophic approach to the rules and proportions. The determining factor in the mathematics of any notable work of architecture was its ultimate appearance. The architects calculated for perspective, for the optical illusions that make edges of objects appear concave and for the fact that columns that are viewed against the sky look different to those adjacent that are viewed against a shadowed wall. Because of these factors, the architects adjusted the plans so that the major lines of any significant building are rarely straight.[33] The most obvious adjustment is to the profile of columns, which narrow from base to top. However, the narrowing is not regular, but gently curved so that each columns appears to have a slight swelling, called entasis below the middle. The entasis is never sufficiently pronounced as to make the swelling wider than the base; it is controlled by a slight reduction in the rate of decrease of diameter. [7] The Parthenon, the Temple to the Goddess Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, is the epitome of what Nikolaus Pevsner called "the most perfect example ever achieved of architecture finding its fulfilment in bodily beauty".[3] Helen Gardner refers to its "unsurpassable excellence", to be surveyed, studied and emulated by architects of later ages. Yet, as Gardner points out, there is hardly a straight line in the building. [34] Banister Fletcher calculated that the stylobate curves upward so that its centres at either end rise about 2.6 inches above the outer corners, and 4.3 inches on the longer sides. A slightly greater adjustment has been made to the entablature. The columns at the ends of the building are not vertical but are inclined towards the centre, with those at the corners being out of plumb by about 2.6 inches.[7] These outer columns are both slightly wider than their neighbours and are slightly closer than any of the others. [35]

The main lines of the Parthenon are all curved.

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Digram showing the optical corrections made by the architects of the Parthenon

A sectioned nautilus shell. These shells may have provided inspiration for voluted Ionic capitals.

The growth of the nautilus corresponds to the Golden Mean

Style

Orders
Stylistically, Ancient Greek architecture is divided into three orders: the Doric Order, the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order, the names reflecting their origins. While the three orders are most easily recognizable by their capitals, the orders also governed the form, proportions, details and relationships of the columns, entablature, pediment and the stylobate.[2] The different orders were applied to the whole range of buildings and monuments. The Doric Order developed on mainland Greece and spread to Italy. It was firmly established and well-defined in its characteristics by the time of the building of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, c. 600 BC. The Ionic order co-existed with the Doric, being favoured by the Greek cites of Ionia, in Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands. It did not reach a clearly defined form until the mid 5th century BC.[23] The early Ionic temples of Asia Minor were particularly ambitious in scale, such as the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. [11] The Corinthian Order was a highly decorative variant not developed until the Hellenistic period and retaining many characteristics of the Ionic. It was popularised by the Romans.[7]
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Orders of Ancient Greek architecture

above: Capital of the Ionic Order showing volutes and ornamented echinus

left: Architectural elements of the Doric Order showing simple curved echinus of capital

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above: Capital of the Corinthian Order showing foliate decoration and vertical volutes.

Doric Order The Doric order is recognised by its capital, of which the echinus is like a circular cushion rising from the top of the column to the square abacus on which rest the lintels. The echinus appears flat and splayed in early examples, deeper and with greater curve in later, more refined examples, and smaller and straight-sided in Hellenistc examples.[36] A refinement of the Doric Column is the entasis, a gentle convex swelling to the profile of the column, which prevents an optical illusion of concavity.[36] Doric columns are almost always cut with grooves, known as "fluting", which run the length of the column and are usually 20 in number, although sometimes fewer. The flutes meet at sharp edges called arrises. At the top of the columns, slightly below the narrowest point, and crossing the terminating arrises, are three horizontal grooves known as the hypotrachelion. Doric columns have no bases, until a few examples in the Hellenistic period.[36] The columns of an early Doric temple such as the Temple of Apollo at Syracuse, Sicily, may have a height to base diameter ratio of only 4:1 and a column height to entablature ratio of 2:1, with relatively crude details. A column height to diameter of 6:1 became more usual, while the column height to entablature ratio at the Parthenon is about 3:1. During the Hellenistic period, Doric conventions of solidity and masculinity dropped away, with the slender and unfluted columns reaching a height to diameter ratio of 7.5:1. [36] The Doric Order The Temple of Hephaestos, Athens, is a well-preserved temple of peripteral hexastyle plan.

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The entablature showing the architrave, frieze with triglyphs and metopes and the overhanging cornice

The tapered fluted columns, constructed in drums, rest directly on the stylobate.

The Doric entablature is in three parts, the architrave, the frieze and the cornice. The architrave is composed of the stone lintels which span the space between the columns, with a joint occurring above the centre of each abacus. On this rests the frieze, one of the major areas of sculptural decoration. The frieze is divided into triglyphs and metopes, the triglyphs, as stated elsewhere in this article, are a reminder of the timber history of the architectural style. Each triglyph has three vertical grooves, similar to the columnar fluting, and below them, seemingly connected, are small strips that appear to connect the triglyphs to the architrave below.[36] A triglyph is located above the centre of each capital, and above the centre of each lintel. However, at the corners of the building, the triglyphs do not fall over the centre the column. The ancient architects took a pragmatic approach to the apparent "rules", simply extending the width of the last two metopes at each end of the building. The cornice is a narrow jutting band of complex moulding which overhangs and protects the ornamented frieze, like the edge of an overhanging wooden-framed roof. It is decorated on the underside with projecting blocks, mutules, further suggesting the wooden nature of the prototype. At either end of the building the pediment rises from the cornice, framed by moulding of similar form.[36]
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The pediment is decorated with figures that are in relief in the earlier examples, but almost freestanding by the time of the Parthenon. Early architectural sculptors found difficulty in creating satisfactory sculptural compositions in the tapering triangular space. [37] By the Early Classical period, with the decoration of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, (486-460 BC) the sculptors had solved the problem by having a standing central figure framed by rearing centaurs and fighting men who are falling, kneeling and lying in attitudes that fit the size and angle of each part of the space.[34] The renowned sculptor Phidias fills the space at the Parthenon (448-432 BC) with a complex array of draped and undraped figures of deities who appear in attitudes of sublime relaxation and elegance. Ionic Order The Ionic Order is recognised by its voluted capital, in which a curved echinus of similar shape to that of the Doric Order, but decorated with stylised ornament, is surmounted by a horizontal band that scrolls under to either side, forming spirals or volutes similar to those of the nautilus shell or ram's horn. In plan, the capital is rectangular. It's designed to be viewed frontally but the capitals at the corners of buildings are modified with an additional scroll so as to appear regular on two adjoining faces. In the Hellenistic period, four-fronted Ionic capitals became common.[38] The Ionic Order The Erechtheum, Acropolis, Athens: a building of asymmetrical plan, for the display of offerings to Athena

Corner capital with a diagonal volute, showing also details of the fluting separated by fillets.

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Frieze of stylised alternating palms and reeds, and a cornice decorated with "egg and dart" moulding.

Like the Doric Order, the Ionic Order retains signs of having its origins in wooden architecture. The horizontal spread of a flat timber plate across the top of a column is a common device in wooden construction, giving a thin upright a wider area on which to bear the lintel, while at the same time reinforcing the load-bearing strength of the lintel itself. Likewise, the columns always have bases, a necessity in wooden architecture to spread the load and protect the base of a comparatively thin upright.[38] The columns are fluted with narrow, shallow flutes that do not meet at a sharp edge but have a flat band or fillet between them. The usual number of flutes is twenty-four but there may be as many as forty-four. The base has two convex mouldings called torus, and from the late Hellenic period stood on a square plinth similar to the abacus.[38] The architrave of the Ionic Order is sometimes undecorated, but more often rises in three outwardly-stepped bands like overlapping timber planks. The frieze, which runs in a continuous band, is separated from the other members by rows of small projecting blocks. They are referred to as dentils, meaning "teeth", but their origin is clearly in narrow wooden slats which supported the roof of a timber structure. [38] The Ionic Order is altogether lighter in appearance than the Doric, with the columns, including base and capital, having a 9:1 ratio with the diameter, while the whole entablature was also much narrower and less heavy than the Doric entablature. There was some variation in the distribution of decoration. Formalised bands of motifs such as alternating forms known as "egg and dart" were a feature of the Ionic entablatures, along with the bands of dentils. The external frieze often contained a continuous band of figurative sculpture or ornament, but this was not always the case. Sometimes a decorative frieze occurred around the upper part of the naos rather than on the exterior of the building. These Ionic-style friezes around the naos are sometimes found on Doric buildings, notably the Parthenon. Some temples, like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, had friezes of figures around the lower drum of each column, separated from the fluted section by a bold moulding. [38] Caryatids, draped female figures used as supporting members to carry the entablature, were a feature of the Ionic order, occurring at several buildings including the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi in 525 BC and at the Erechtheion, about 410 BC. [39] The Corinthian Order The Temple of Zeus Olympia, Athens, ("the Olympieion")

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The tall capital combines both semi-naturalistic leaves and highly stylised tendrils forming volutes.

Corinthian Order The Corinthian Order does not have its origin in wooden architecture. It grew directly out of the Ionic in the mid 5th century BC, and was initially of much the same style and proportion, but distinguished by its more ornate capitals.[40] The capital was very much deeper than either the Doric or the Ionic capital, being shaped like a large krater, a bell-shaped mixing bowl, and being ornamented with a double row of acanthus leaves above which rose voluted tendrils, supporting the corners of the abacus, which, no longer perfectly square, splayed above them. According to Vitruvius, the capital was invented by a bronze founder, Callimarchus of Corinth, who took his inspiration from a basket of offerings that had been placed on a grave, with a flat tile on top to protect the goods. The basket had been placed on the root of an acanthus plant which had grown up around it. [40] The ratio of the column height to diameter is generally 10:1, with the capital taking up more than 1/10 of the height. The ratio of capital height to diameter is generally about 1.16:1. [40] The Corinthian Order was initially used internally, as at the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Basae (c.450-425 BC). In 334 BC it appeared as an external feature on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, and then on a huge scale at the Temple of Zeus Olympia in Athens, (174 BC - AD 132).[40] It was popularised by the Romans, who added a number of refinements and decorative details. During the Hellenistic period, Corinthian columns were sometimes built without fluting.[40]

Decoration
Architectural ornament
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Architectural ornament of fired and painted clay

This Archaic gorgon's head antefix has been cast in a mould, fired and painted.

The lion's head gargoyle is fixed to a revetment on which elements of a formal frieze have been painted.

Early wooden structures, particularly temples, were ornamented and in part protected by fired and painted clay revetments in the form of rectangular panels, and ornamental discs. Many fragments of these have outlived the buildings that they decorated and demonstrate a wealth of formal border designs of geometric scrolls, overlapping patterns and foliate motifs.[41] With the introduction of stone-built temples, the revetments no longer served a protective purpose and sculptured decoration became more common. The clay ornaments were limited to the roof of buildings, decorating the cornice, the corners and surmounting the pediment. At the corners of pediments they were called acroteria and along the sides of the building, antefixes. Early decorative elements were generally semi-circular, but later of roughly triangular shape with moulded ornament, often palmate.[41][42] Ionic cornices were often set with a row of lion's masks, with open mouths that ejected rainwater.[24][42] From the Late Classical period, acroteria were sometimes sculptured figures.See "Architectural sculpture"[43] In the three orders of Ancient Greek architecture, the sculptural decoration, be it a simple half round astragal, a frieze of stylised foliage or the ornate sculpture of the pediment, is all essential to the architecture of which it is a part. In the Doric order, there is no variation in its placement. Reliefs never decorate walls in an arbitrary way. The sculpture is always located in several predetermined areas, the metopes and the pediment. [41] In later Ionic architecture, there is greater diversity in the types and numbers of mouldings and decorations, particularly around doorways, where voluted brackets sometimes occur supporting an ornamental cornice over a door, such as that at the Erechtheum.[24][26][41] A much applied narrow moulding is called "bead and reel" and is symmetrical, stemming from turned wooden prototypes. Wider mouldings include one with tongue-like or pointed leaf
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shapes, which are grooved and sometimes turned upward at the tip, and "egg and dart" moulding which alternates ovoid shapes with narrow pointy ones. [24][41][44] Architectural sculpture

The Archaic Gorgon of the western pediment from the Artemis Temple of Corfu, Archaeological Museum of Corfu

Classical figurative sculpture from the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, British Museum

Architectural sculpture showed a development from early Archaic examples through Severe Classical, High Classical, Late Classical and Hellenistic. [1] Remnants of the Archaic architectural sculpture (700 - 500 BC) exist from the early 6th century BC with the earliest surviving pedimental sculpture being remnants of a Gorgon flanked by heraldic panthers from the centre of the pediment of the Artemis Temple of Corfu.[45] A metope from a temple known as "Temple C" at Selinus, Sicily, shows, in a better preserved state, Perseus slaying the Gorgon Medusa.[37] Both images parallel the stylised depiction of the Gorgons on the black figure name vase decorated by the Nessos painter (c. 600 BC), with the face and shoulders turned frontally, and the legs in a running or kneeling position. At this date images of terrifying monsters have predominance over the emphasis on the human figure that developed with Humanist philosophy.[45] The Severe Classical style (500 - 450 BC) is represented by the pedimental sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, (470 - 456 BC). The eastern pediment shows a moment of stillness and "impending drama" before the beginning of a chariot race, the figures of Zeus and the competitors being severe and idealised representations of the human form .[46] The western pediment has Apollo as the central figure, "majestic" and "remote", presiding over a battle of Lapiths and Centaurs, in strong contrast to that of the eastern pediment for its depiction of violent action, and described by D. E. Strong as the "most powerful piece of illustration" for a hundred years.[46]
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The shallow reliefs and three-dimensional sculpture which adorned the frieze and pediments, respectively, of the Parthenon, are the lifelike products of the High Classical style (450 -400 BC) and were created under the direction of the sculptor Phidias.[47] The pedimental sculpture represents the Gods of Olympus, while the frieze shows the Panathenaic procession and ceremonial events that took place every four years to honour the titular Goddess of Athens.[47] The frieze and remaining figures of the eastern pediment show a profound understanding of the human body, and how it varies depending upon its position and the stresses that action and emotion place upon it. Benjamin Robert Haydon described the reclining figure of Dionysus as "....the most heroic style of art, combined with all the essential detail of actual life".[48] The names of many famous sculptors are known from the Late Classical period (400 - 323 BC), including Timotheos, Praxiteles, Leochares and Skopas, but their works are known mainly from Roman copies.[1] Little architectural sculpture of the period remains intact. The Temple of Asclepius at Epidauros had sculpture by Timotheos working with the architect Theodotos. Fragments of the eastern pediment survive, showing the Sack of Troy. The scene appears to have filled the space with figures carefully arranged to fit the slope and shape available, as with earlier east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympus. But the figures are more violent in action, the central space taken up, not with a commanding God, but with the dynamic figure of Neoptolemos as he seizes the aged king Priam and stabs him. The remaining fragments give the impression of a whole range of human emotions, fear, horror, cruelty and lust for conquest.[43] The acroteria were sculptured by Timotheus, except for that at the centre of the east pediment which is the work of the architect. The palmate acroteria have been replaced here with small figures, the eastern pediment being surmounted by a winged Nike, poised against the wind.[43] Hellenistic architectural sculpture (323 - 31 BC) was to become more flamboyant, both in the rendering of expression and motion, which is often emphasised by flowing draperies, the Nike Samothrace which decorated a monument in the shape of a ship being a well known example. The Pergamon Altar (c. 180-160 BC) has a frieze (120 metres long by 2.3 metres high) of figures in very high relief. The frieze represents the battle for supremacy of Gods and Titans, and employs many dramatic devices: frenzy, pathos and triumph, to convey the sense of conflict.[49] Metopes, friezes and caryatid Archaic metope: Perseus and Medusa, Temple C at Selinunte.

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Severe Classical metope: Labours of Hercules, Temple of Zeus, Olympus

High Classical frieze: Panathenaic Ritual, Parthenon, Athens

Hellenistic frieze: Battle of Gods and Titans, the Pergamon Altar.

Ionic caryatid from the Erechtheum

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