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access to Metropolitan Museum Studies
1765, aonce
Two small marble drops or guttae Frenchinlaid
architect named Bocher relieved
in a limestone cornice and fragments ofbuilding
the tedium of the modern villas at Zante
by a itself
hawksbeak molding of the cornice brief excursion
(fig. to Arcadia. Accidentally
2) may remind visitors to thehe
Metropolitan
happened upon this temple, which he im-
Museum of a comparatively unknown temple
mediately identified from its location; and on
designed by the architect of the Parthenon.
his unpublished drawings, acquired in I9I4 by
theof
Comparatively unknown, in spite Victoria
the and Albert Museum, appears the
fact
note "par moi
that it has been treated in monumental decouvert au mois de Novr de
publi-
l'annee I765-J.
cations, it still holds within its ordinary Bocher." Wishing to return
colum-
nar shell more fantastic problems than
for further any
study a few years later, he was mur-
other building, I think we may
deredsay, of the
by bandits; and for the next forty-five
Greek world. Isolated among the difficult
years Ar-
the temple remained almost as elusive as
cadian mountains (fig. i), nearly four
before. thou-
This period of ignorance was ended in
sand-feet above sea level and far from
I81I, when human
an international society of antiqua-
habitation, it was mentioned byrians,
onlyofonewhom an-Haller von Hallerstein and
cient traveler, Pausanias, the Greek
CharlesBaedeker.
R. Cockerell were the leaders, flushed
with their success of
And in this oldest description lies the first in the excavation of the
Aegina marbles,
our problems; for Pausanias reports that thecame to Bassae in hope of
temple was designed by the architect
similar booty.of the
Their first efforts were frustrat-
Parthenon at Athens, Iktinos, and that
ed by it was
Turkish opposition, though Cockerell,
dedicated to Apollo the Succorer, and
crawling downfrom
a fox hole when the tenant was
these two facts he conjectures that it was erect-
absent, discovered that its roof was composed
ed at the time of the great plague in Athens
of a sculptured marble frieze slab, which whet-
(430-427 B.c.). Some modern writers have de-
ted the appetites of the explorers. In 1812,
nied both architect and date. It would seem therefore, after bribing the Turkish gover-
that the temple which in the whole Pelo-
nor of the Peloponnesos with a promise of
ponnesos, as Pausanias says, was surpassed inhalf of the proceeds, the exploring party re-
beauty only by that at Tegea and containedturned, their number recruited to seven, and
important examples of the Doric, Ionic, andwith two hundred workmen encamped about
Corinthian styles would demand comprehen-the temple for two months. Cockerell was ab-
sive examination by modern methods.' sent in Sicily, but Haller gathered the techni-
In no slight degree are our uncertainties to cal architectural information; and with the en-
be attributed to the manner in which the tem-couragement of native music they removed the
ple has been studied in the past. For sixteenhuge masses of fallen stones which encum-
hundred years it was lost to view; then, inbered the interior to a height of fifteen feet,
1 I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the au-Rhys Carpenter, whose encouragement was in part re-
thorities of the Greek Archaeological Service and ofsponsible for the inception of this work and who par-
the British Museum for permitting and facilitatingticipated in its earlier stages, will be more evident
my investigations at Bassae and London. My debt toupon the appearance of the final publication.
204
FIG. I. VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT BASSAE FROM THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT KOTILON
French privateers; and there, at a publicthe exception of one of the duplicate note
sale,
they passed into the possession of the British which was transmitted to Cockerell i
books,
London; for it was to the latter that Stacke
Museum, at a cost of 60,ooo Spanish dollars.
The success which had attended the excava-
berg, Brondsted, Linckh, and the other explor
tion deserted the explorers when they ers now looked for the architectural publica
ap-
proached the problem of scientific publication.But meanwhile others had been busy.
tion.
Cockerell having been absent during the pirated
exca- publication of the frieze sculptures ap
peared at Rome in I8I4. The British Museum
vation, the work of recording technical details
had devolved upon the very capable Haller;
officially published the frieze in I820. Stackel
but he, while returning from Zante, was berg,
caughtafter long delays, finally issued his ac
count of the excavation and analysis of th
in a frightful storm, and the cargo, together
with his clothes, money, and elaboratelysculptures
fin- in I826. All three of these accounts
were accompanied by summary descriptions o
ished drawings and notebooks, was thrown
light by the
the architecture. An English party Greekpor-
spent excavations of I902-I9o8
tions of two days at the temple inmeasures
and by the 1820; ofand
conservation undertak-
it was on their labors, which could not have
en at that time by Kavvadias, Kourouniotis,
totaled more than fourteen hours, that the
and Rhomaios; first helpful are the
particularly
detailed architectural publication
partial was
reconstruction
based of inthe temple itself and
I830. The year before this the
theFrench Expedi-
orderly arrangement of the scattered stones
in the vicinity.
tion de Moree, in turn, had spent three But it is not
days at to Bassae alone that
we must extend our
the temple in a heavy fog; nevertheless search. The British Muse-
their
publication of 1833 (by Blouet and others)
um contains not only theissculptured marbles
and some
one of the most elaborate. During architectural
this period details, but also Cock-
Cockerell was deeply immersed erell's
inpapers.2 And the purchaser of a locked
his profes-
sional career; and it was not until
wardrobeI860, forty-
at a Leipzig auction, in I872, discov-
ered therein Haller's missing manuscripts and
drawings, most of which are now in the Stras-
bourg Library. This resurrected material, which
has never yet been fully utilized, forms a source
of information almost equal in value to the
temple itself.
In this short preliminary notice I shall dis-
cuss only the essential new features pertaining
to the three architectural orders and to the
AMI
three points at which decorative sculpture was
applied.
I[:r In the case of the Doric external order the
books show remarkable discrepancies. Each in-
others
easy to see how the mistake arose believe
with that they can be d
refer-
ence to the diameters; and, as result
for theofheights,
careful measurement,
firmed had
it happened that various investigators that the stylobate show
com-
curvature
bined the low heavy shafts with the and that the
small columns did not lean
capi-
inward; in or
tals belonging to the thinner shafts, spitethe
of the distortions caused by
tall
earthquakes
thin shafts with the large capitals the horizontal
belonging to planes and vertical
axes can still
the heavier shafts. The importance of thebe verified.
new On the other hand,
measurements lies in the revision
the swelling
of theoutline
pro-
of the shaft known as the
entasis
portions of the Doric order and is certainly
in the fact present,
that and is quite ap-
the use of heavy columns atparent
oneasend
sighted
only
from is
pavement or capital.
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unique among Greek Doric temples, which Ascending to the capitals, I wish only to em-
normally, if they show this emphasis at all,
phasize the well-known fact that they are di-
have it at both ends.3 This emphasis on thevided from the shafts by triple incisions, instead
facade columns, furthermore, must be regard-of the usual single incision of the Periclean
ed as a sign of archaism. age, and to point out that this is another of the
The existence of optical refinements in this numerous archaic survivals in the design of
temple is disputed, the greatest expert of all, the temple. Above the capitals we find most
Penrose, having denied their existence, while
of the architrave still in place, though distort-
3 The precedent for this use of heavy columns at onechanged the material to marble but also, because of
end undoubtedly came, like the fifteen-columned flankthe greater strength of their material, combined the
and the special adytum chamber, from the archaicsmaller column diameters of the flanks with the wider
temple of Apollo at Delphi.There the earlier west end
front spacing, thus obtaining an effect afterwards re-
had heavier columns than those on the flanks, as usu-
produced at Bassae.
al; but on the east front the Alkmaionidai not only
?:??. :::??
i- ? ???e
I:::?
.. . ?4 ," .e
? ????illl?????
?.?: :::::r:!:::?:-'.'-
:.???.:::?
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.71 'I .. _
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-~~~rF?5 * If
-9
. ..
? .. !'..j s,,G~... . .
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! ' - A - *-i
,
Ti I I
,ftr i:. a
,,,,i | [.'. z.ea$.
t -j ..??
ment
to make measured drawings at in view
leisure. of the fact that the ext
These
sketches furnish very divergent criteria
and all thefor its of the shaft up to
drums
reconstruction; some show a single
littlegarland of necking are of the co
below the
twenty tiny acanthus leaves at the bottom,
limestone oth-
used also in the adjoining Io
and walls. Thus
ers a row of eight large water leaves; Cockerell the first distinction
the central rows
suggested that there were two superposed and the flank columns, th
of tiny leaves, separated by a joint. This
terial, last
falls in- A second distinction
away.
form
terpretation is now confirmed by of the
Haller's bases, those on either si
redis-
covered drawings (fig. 8)-to some
the enormous
of which
spread of I2 inches
Cockerell had access - and by the French
beyond the exca-
shaft, nearly doubling the
while in the isolated column the spre
duced to 5A inches (0.139 m.); but
UzcL,A4A- .
_
I 'i^i'1 . -
1,A ,
,! !i "' !?-4 .c ... ?. . . ' ..
,I G;: _ 1. ... ,. . Se
together with the frieze sculptures to the shoreposed scene of destruction (while Cockerell
south of Olympia, where the departing exca-was not), wrote two years later, after the loss
vators were overtaken by the emissaries of theof his drawings, asking Cockerell to return to
new Pasha of the Morea, who hacked the capi- the temple to remeasure the Corinthian capi-
tal to pieces in their rage. If we accept thistal. Thus it would be possible to regard the
story, the twelve Corinthian fragments foundtwelve extant fragments as belonging to the
at the temple in I9o8, including three pieces ofcentral capital. More decisive is the following
abacus, must have belonged to other capitals.significant entry, which I found in Haller's
OF THE TEMPLE
FIG. II. SLAB NUMBER 521 OF THE CENTAUR FRIEZE. BRITISH MUSEUM
5 The slabs themselves have an aggregate length of in the text is the new estimate of the exposed length
IOI ft. i in. (30.805 m.) at present; restoring the de-
of the sculptured frieze, subtracting overlapping cor-
ficiencies in nos. 52I and 530 we obtain a total ners.
of The numbers of the slabs are those employed
about Ioi ft. 2 in. (30.835 m.). The dimension givenin the British Museum.
FIG. 12. SLAB NUMBER 538 OF THE AMAZON FRIEZE. BRITISH MUSEUM
a lack of symmetry which is not the least of assuming, furthermore, that the two different
our problems. As for the arrangement, we subjects were not indiscriminately intermin-
know that one slab (no. 540) is rebated to fit gled, nevertheless, if we had no more evidence
at a corner; but we do not know at which of than was at the command of our predecessors,
the four corners of the room. Two other slabs these twenty-three slabs would still permit
(nos. 527 and 528) fit together, because one is 6,952,804,02,320,00o different arrangements.
socketed to receive a protruding knee and hand Only six of these arrangements have yet been
from an adjoining slab (fig. I3); this is but one published,6 and all can be proved .wrong; the
instance of the builder's difficulty in squeezing difficulty of finding the right one remains.
into place a series of slabs which were obvious- All previous investigations have been based
ly carved in some other locality and did not mainly on the subjective aspect of sculptural
quite fit their designated positions; at other design. Apart from the fallibility of such meth-
6These are due to Stackelberg (I826), Cockerell ods, even if we could persuade ourselves that
( 860), Ivanoff (I865), Lange (I880), Murray (I883), we had succeeded in rediscovering the sculp-
and Smith (1892). tor's original meaning, there would always re-
7 Stackelberg's width of 13 ft. j in. (3-975 m.) and totals become about Ioo ft. 6 in. (30.632 m.) accord-
Lange's of 14 ft. 6j in. (4.427 m.) offer the greatest ing to Smith, ioi ft. 91 in. (31.034 m.) according to
contrasts in this direction; and Smith's dimension ofLange. These variations are cited merely to illustrate
35 ft. Iol in. (10.941 m.) and Stackelberg's of 37 ft. the prevailing uncertainty as to the primary condi-
4i in. (II.392 m.) are the extremes in length. Thetions of restoration.
FIG. 15. DOWEL HOLE SUPERPOSED ON LIFTING HOLE (SLAB 53I, RIGHT)
been taken into consideration. Much of this the sculpture near the top of each slab (cf. fig.
evidence has been overlooked because all frac- I6) had been discussed in the past, and they
tures and cavities were immediately filled withhad been interpreted as holes for pegging the
cement under the direction of Richard West- thin frieze slabs to a more solid background of
macott, before the first authorized publicationwood or stone; and, since these so-called peg
holes are conspicuous in the background of
in I820. Thus, while it has always been obvi-
ous that the protruding hand and knee of the sculpture and do not represent a normal
number 528 (fig. I3) would not have permit- method of building, it had been assumed that
ted use of the latter at a left corner and that athis was a makeshift method and that the frieze
was set in place only after the temple had been
protruding shoulder at the right edge of num-
ber 520 could not have been employed at acompleted. But at Bassae I identified most of
the limestone blocks which had formed the
8 Thus we see that Cockerell and Smith erroneously
employed no. 529 at a left corner and that Cockerellbackers of the sculptured frieze, and they show
similarly misused no. 526 at a right corner. not a single peg hole (cf. fig. I7). In other
9 The sketches made in i812 by Wagner and Stack- fractures); Corbould in the publication of 1820 rep-
elberg (for the frieze publications of 1814 and 1826) resented only seven. Ivanoff shows "incavi verticali
show respectively thirty-five and twenty-one such per i perni" in his section (1865), and Lange observed
holes (six of the former being misinterpretations of nine holes but gave no explanation (i880).
?? ?;?..'1?? z
;'; ???;;i.;:?
...
t;'
. : .
I.'. : ';1_?.. -??? ?? :..
..?..
1?1
t ???; tr?
??-'`..; 5' ::t
d I
obtain seventy-six
employed in connection with transporting the candidates, varyi
slabs up the mountain. On the other
onehand, the
to seventeen for each of the eigh
square holes were used for iron dowels which
positions. Incidentally, this process yi
first
pinned the frieze to the architrave clue
(fig. I7).to the orientation of the fri
It was with considerable optimism that I 540,
number be- abutted by either 537 or
gan to compare the thirty-three upper halves
cupied of
the southwest corner, the subj
dowel holes in the frieze slabs withbeing the Amazon battle. Further li
the twenty-
five lower halves of dowel holes in on the
view ofar-
the necessity of utilizing at
dowel
chitraves; the latter being fixed in hole it
position, in each slab, reduces the
seemed logical to proceed on theofaxiom thatfor corner positions to sixt
candidates
every dowel hole in the frieze must correspond
And, after due consideration of the p
to a hole (or at least to an adequateities of thein
fracture) joints and of the orientati
the architrave, and vice versa. But this effort
subjects, we finally reduce the number
was soon frustrated. The distances between the
able end groups to twenty-three, whi
centers of pairs of dowel holes on the archi-
be paired in twenty-four different wa
trave are from 7' to 12 inches (0.19 to 0.305
thirty-one permissible variations of se
m.), averaging io4 inches (0.260 m.),
Withwhereas
regard to the long sides of the
the average interval between the pairs
where ofitad-
is impracticable to group
joining dowels in the frieze (on either side of
according to their lengths, the proble
a joint) would have been I92 inches (0.495 m.).
again be attacked with reference to th
The discrepancy is particularly flagrant
for thein the
backers. Five of the latter show
case of the Amazon slabs, whereclamp the average
cuttings, between which must h
interval is 20o inches (o.5I8 m.), and the clos-
a frieze joint (cf. fig. I9); one of th
est combination possible would be
ersI5A inches
comes from the east side, two from
(0.384 m.), far exceeding the maximum per-
side or the south end, and two from
mitted by the holes on the architrave. It is
side or the south end. Pairing the fri
now evident that the dowel holes cannot be
in such a way that the added distances
matched. Yet we cannot assume that theyjoints
their were and clamps will equal cl
never used, since Haller and Stackelberg
tervals both
on the backers, we discover I66
allude to the discovery of bronze dowels in the could be satisfactorily c
slabs which
frieze. The only alternative is that
withtwo
theholes
five backers. The question of
were cut on each slab, and that from
the builders
among these rests upon the rela
utilized only the one which happened
betweento befrieze joints and the back
the
most convenient.11 At the present for
day,however,
the latter were fairly regular, at
we have no means of distinguishing which ofto half of the Ionic colum
equivalent
the dowel holes were actually utilized.
ing. A lengthy process of eliminatio
Returning, perforce, to the top of the frieze,
involves testing each pair of slabs in e
sition intask
we must attempt the seemingly hopeless combination with all the oth
of matching the clamps on two concentric rec- eventually limits us, on
and backers,
tangles, in both of which the sequence of six
side, to thepermissible groups of eigh
elements is unknown throughout.
all Beginning
fixed as to sequence. And, compa
at the corners, however, we can identify three with the dowel holes and
six sequences
of the L-shaped angle backers; and, by match-
1 A similar instance occurs at Sunion, w
ing the clamps of all frieze slabs which might
Doric frieze blocks have dowel holes at both
conceivably have fitted at cornerswere
(fig.fastened
i8), weat one end only.
tion
on the architrave (assuming that ofslab
each the four faces without excess
must have been doweled at one end or the thus automatically limiting
crepancies,
other), we find ourselves limited to single sequence on the north, west, and
two groups.
and
Similarly on the east side, with the to now
field a single group (but with 120 per
tions of sequence)
restricted by the alternative identifications of on the east. This
_,I
>- " " J
man, it at
tary information that was lacking might well be that of Kallimachos, in-
Olympia:
the construction was identical in both instances.
ventor of the Corinthian capital and exponent
As for the date and the architect, seemingly
of the acanthus style.
EPILOGUE
. .. AX
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;-? _ ; X..
rI I
WEST
I I
SOUTH
F
I I
EAST
WEST
NORTH
EAST
s
ZI .r,
r
-AL
NORTH
REFERENCES CITED