Books: The Old Roman World

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[Sidenote: Egyptian architecture.]

[Sidenote: Monuments of Egypt.]

[Sidenote: Temple of Carnack.]

[Sidenote: Features of Egyptian art.]

But architecture is conventional, and demands a knowledge of its system
and a mind informed as to the principles on which it depends for beauty.
Hence, in the oldest temples of India and Egypt, there was probably
vastness, without elegance or even embellishment. But no nation ever
left structures that, in extent and grandeur, can compare with those of
ancient Egypt; and these were chiefly temples. Nothing remains of the
ancient monuments of Thebes but the ruins of edifices consecrated to the
deity--neither bridges, nor quays, nor baths, nor theatres. It was when
the Israelites were oppressed by Pharaoh that the great city of
Heliopolis, which the Greeks called Thebes, arose, with its hundred
gates, and stately public buildings, and magnificent temples. The ruins
of these attest grandeur and vastness. They were built of stone, in huge
blocks, and we are still at a loss to comprehend how such heavy stones
could have been transported and erected. All the monuments of the
Pharaohs are wonders of science and art, especially such as appear in
the ruins of Carnack--a temple formerly designated as that of Jupiter
Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, the first
of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that architecture in Egypt
reached its greatest development. Then we find the rectangular cut
blocks of stone in parallel courses, and the heavy piers, and the
cylindrical column, with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice. But the
imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the vast proportions
of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion, or
graceful embellishments. It was designed to awe the people, and kindle
sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end was
contemplated, it was nobly reached. Even to this day the traveller
stands in admiring amazement before those monuments which were old three
thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids.
No ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes. The
temple of Carnack and the palace of Rameses the Great, were probably the
most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
other structures did not possess that unity of design, which marked the
Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes form the approach. At
Carnack the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
of the edifice stand two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
principal structures do not follow the straight line, but begin with
pyramidical towers which flank the gateways. Then follows, usually, a
court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses for
the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidical tower, now leads to the
interior and most considerable part of the temple, a portico inclosed
with walls, which only receives light through the entablature or
openings in the roof. Adjoining to this is the cella of the temple,
without columns, inclosed by several walls, often divided into various
small chambers, with monolith receptacles for idols or mummies or
animals. The columns stand within the walls. The Egyptians had no
perpetual temples. The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, an
expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures. The
walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside,
and beveled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimes
amounts to twenty-four feet, and thus the whole building assumes a
pyramidical form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture.
The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed close
together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes, and
is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted like
Grecian columns. The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with all
kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus, or bulge out below,
and are contracted above, with low, but projecting abacus. They abound
with sculptured decorations, borrowed from the vegetation of the
country. The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a
quarter times the greatest diameter. [Footnote: Muller.]

[Sidenote: The Pyramids.]

But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity, as
from their immense size and unknown age. None but sacerdotal monarchs
would ever have erected them--none but a fanatical people would ever
have toiled upon them. They do not indicate civilization, but despotism.
We do not know for what purpose they were raised, except as sepulchres
for kings. They do not even indicate as high a culture as the temples of
Thebes, although they were built at a considerable period subsequently,
even several generations after Sesostris reigned in splendor. The
pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is seven
hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air four hundred and
fifty-two, and is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
time than the mountains near it. And it is probable that it stands over
an immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient
Egypt, and which may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which
Herodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this
author, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty
years. What a waste of labor!

The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, and the
only difference of architecture is this, that the rooms are larger and
in greater numbers. Some think that the labyrinth was a collective
palace of many rulers.

Such was the massive grandeur of Egyptian antiquities: at the best
curiosities, but of slight avail for moral or aesthetic culture, they yet
indicate a considerable civilization at a very remote period--proving
not merely by architectural monuments, but by their system of writing,
an original and intellectual people. [Footnote: Muller, _Ancient
Art_; Wilkinson, _Topog. of Thebes_; Champollion, _Lettres Ecrites
d'Egypt_; _Journal des Sav._ 1836; _Encyclopedia Britannica_;
Strabo.]

[Sidenote: Babylonian architecture.]

Of Babylonian architecture we know but little, beyond what the
Scriptures and ancient authors allude to in scattered notices. But,
though nothing survives of ancient magnificence, we feel that a city
whose walls, according to Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in
thickness, three hundred and thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in
circumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must have
had considerable architectural splendor. The Tower of Belus, the Palace
of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis, were probably wonderful
structures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions of
architectural effect.

[Sidenote: Tyrian monuments.]

The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
world, was probably built by Phoenician artists. It was not remarkable
for size; it was, indeed, very small; but it had great splendor of
decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
platform of stone, and having a striking resemblance to the oldest Greek
temples, like those of aegina and Paestum. The portico of the temple, in
the time of Herod, was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the temple
itself was entered by nine gates thickly coated with silver and gold.
The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold, and
was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticoes and palaces
with which it was surrounded, gave to it a very imposing effect.

[Sidenote: Early Doric monuments.]

[Sidenote: The principles of Doric architecture.]

[Sidenote: The features of the Doric order.]

[Sidenote: The Parthenon.]

Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
civilization, was perfected only by the Greeks. Egyptian monuments were
curiosities to the Greek and Roman mind, as they are to us objects of
awe and wonder. And as we propose to treat of the arts in their
culminating excellence chiefly,--to show what the Pagan intellect of man
could accomplish, unaided by light from heaven, we turn to the great
teacher of the last two thousand years. It was among the ancient
Dorians, who descended from the mountains of Northern Greece eighty
years after the fall of Troy, that art first appeared. The Pelasgi,
supposed to be Phoenicians, erected cyclopean structures fifteen hundred
years before Christ, as seen in the giant walls of the Acropolis,
[Footnote: _Dodwell's Classical Tour_, Muller.] constructed of huge
blocks of hewn stone, and the palaces of the princes of heroic times,
[Footnote: Homer's description of the palace of Odysseus.] like the
Mycenaean treasury, the lintel of the doorway of which is one stone
twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. [Footnote: Mure, _Tour in
Greece_.] But these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness
merely, were deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given
immortality to the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture
every thing was suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The
great thickness of the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample
proportion of the capital; the great horizontal lines of the architrave
and cornice, predominating over the vertical lines of the columns; the
severity of geometrical forms, produced for the most part by straight
lines, gave an imposing simplicity to the Doric temple. How far the
Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot tell, for
though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian temples, they
are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the structures of
Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical columns, from
which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric column. The Greeks
seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved upon it. The Doric
column was not, probably, an entirely new creation, but shaped after the
models furnished by the most original of all the ancient nations, even
the Egyptians. The Doric style was used exclusively until after the
Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly applied to temples. The Doric
temples are uniform in plan. The columns were fluted, and were generally
about six diameters in height. They diminished gradually from the base,
with a slight convexed swelling downward. They were superimposed by
capitals proportionate, and coming within their height. The entablature
which the column supported is also of so many diameters in height. So
regular and perfect was the plan of the temple, that, "if the dimensions
of a single column, and the proportion the entablature should bear to
it, were given to two individuals acquainted with the style, with
directions to compose a temple, they would produce designs exactly
similar in size, arrangement, and general proportions." Then the Doric
order possessed a peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were
nevertheless necessary in order to determine the number of diameters a
column should have, and, accordingly, the height of the entablature. The
Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years,
and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. The massive temples
of Paestum, the colossal magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more
elegant proportions of the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and
Temple of Theseus, show the perfection of the Doric architecture.
Although the general style of all the Doric temples is so uniform, yet
hardly two temples were alike. The earlier Doric was more massive; the
latter were more elegant, and were rich in sculptured decorations.
Nothing could surpass the beauty of a Doric temple in the time of
Pericles. The stylobate or pedestal, from two thirds to a whole diameter
of a column in height, was built in three equal courses, which gradually
receded from the one below, and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
platform on which the pillars rested. The column was from four to six
diameters in height, with twenty flutes, with a capital of half a
diameter supporting the entablature. This again, two diameters in
height, was divided into architrave, frieze, and cornice. But the great
beauty of the temple was the portico in front, a forest of columns,
supporting the pediment, about a diameter and a half to the apex, making
an angle at the base of about 14 degrees. From the pediment projects the
cornice, while, at the apex and at the base of it, are sculptured
ornaments, generally, the figures of men or animals. The whole outline
of columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of
light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals
produce a grand effect. The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of
the Doric, has never been equaled, and it still stands august in its
ruins--the glory of the old Acropolis, and the pride of Athens. It was
built of Pentelic marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was
two hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, and one hundred and one in
breadth, and sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted
columns, six feet and two inches at the base, and thirty-four feet in
height, while within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range
of columns, standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the
pediment were elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, while the
cella, within and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of
Phidias. The grandest was the colossal statue of Minerva, in the eastern
apartment of the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and
ivory; while the inner walls were decorated with paintings, and the
temple itself was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon,
so regular, with its vertical and horizontal lines, was curved in every
line, with the exception of the gable,--pillars, architrave,
entablature, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement--all arched
upwards, though so slightly as not to be perceptible, and these curved
lines gave to it a peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as
solidity.

[Sidenote: The Acropolis.]

Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented.
The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and alternate fillets, and
the fillet is about a quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is
flatter than of the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great
distinction of the Ionic column is a base, and a capital formed with
volutes, with a more slender shaft. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
among the ancients in architecture, says that, "the Greeks, in inventing
these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
dignity of a man, and in the other, the delicacy and ornaments of a
woman; the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the
volutes of ringlets."

[Sidenote: Temple of Minerva.]

The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
Peloponnesian war. Its peculiarity is columns with foliated capitals,
and still greater height, about ten diameters, with a more ornamented
entablature. Of this order, the most famous temple in Greece was that of
Minerva at Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four
hundred years before Christ.

Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
wave, concave at one end, and convex at the other, like an Italic
_f_, the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve,
according to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.

[Sidenote: Architecture among the Greeks seen in greatest perfection in
temples.]

The most beautiful application of Grecian architecture was in the
temples, which were very numerous, and of extraordinary grandeur, long
before the Persian war. Their entrance was always to the west or the
east. They were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly
adorned with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the
front alone, in the fore and back fronts, or on all the four sides. They
generally had porticoes attached to them. They had no windows, receiving
their light from the door or from above. The friezes were adorned with
various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no expense was
spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was the cella,
where the statue of the deity was kept, and was generally surrounded
with a balustrade. Beside the cella was the vestibule, and a chamber in
the rear or back front in which the treasures of the temple were kept.
Names were applied to the temples, as well as the porticoes, according
to the number of columns in the portico at either end of the temple,
such as the tetrastyle with four columns in front, or hexastyle when
there were six. There were never more than ten columns in front. The
Parthenon had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to
have twice as many columns along the sides as in front, and one more.
Some of the temples had double rows of columns on all sides, like that
of Diana at Ephesus, and of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the
columns varied from a diameter and half of a column to four diameters.
About five eighths of a Doric temple were occupied by the cella, and
three eighths by the portico.

[Sidenote: Simplicity of Grecian temples.]

That which gives so much simplicity and harmony in the Greek temples,
which are the great elements of beauty in architecture, is the simple
outline, in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
straight and uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity
and harmony are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other
orders, and pertain to all the temples of which we have knowledge. Nor
can any improvement be made upon them, or any alteration which does not
conflict with established principles. The Ionic and Corinthian, or the
Voluted and Foliated orders, do not possess that harmony which pervades
the Doric, but the more beautiful compositions are so consummate that
they will ever be taken as models of study.

[Sidenote: Matchless proportions of the Grecian temples.]

It is not the magnitude of the Grecian temples and other works of art
which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
models. It is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
the temples of Egypt, or the vast dimensions of Roman amphitheatres.
Only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic cathedral, like
the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Diana at
Ephesus. Even the Pantheon at Rome is small, compared with the later
monuments of the Caesars. The traveler is always disappointed in
contemplating their remains, so far as size is concerned. But it is
their matchless proportions, their severe symmetry, the grandeur of
effect, the undying beauty, the graceful form which impress us, and make
us feel that they are perfect. By the side of the Colosseum they are
insignificant in magnitude. They do not cover acres like the baths of
Caracalla. Yet who has copied the Flavian amphitheatre? Who erects an
edifice after the style of the Thermae? But all artists copy the
Parthenon. That, and not the colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears
in the capitals of Europe, and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo
or a Christopher Wren.

The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
Pericles to Alexander--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
were used indiscriminately.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Roman art.]

[Sidenote: Romans copied the Greeks.]

In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima was built during the reign of the
second Tarquin--the grandest monument of the reign of the kings. It is
not probable that temples and other public buildings were either
beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece, when Grecian
architects were employed. The Romans adopted the Corinthian style, which
they made even more ornamental, and by the successful combination of the
Etruscan arch with the Grecian column, laid the foundation of a new and
original style, susceptible of great variety and magnificence. They
entered into architecture with the enthusiasm of their teachers, but, in
their passion for novelty, lost sight of the simplicity which is the
great fascination of a Doric Temple. "And they deemed that lightness and
grace were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical
and the horizontal, as by the comparative slenderness of the former.
Hence we see a poverty in Roman architecture in the midst of profuse
ornament. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter,
while they increased the elevation, of the columns. Hence the massive
simplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric disappear in the
Roman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into a
multiplicity of minute details." [Footnote: Memes, _Sculpture and
Architecture._] And when they used the Doric at all, they used the
base, which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric
capital, which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric
temples were peripteral, that is, were surrounded with pillars on all
the sides. But the Romans did not build with porticoes even on each
front, but only on one, which had a greater projection than the Grecian.
They generally are projected three columns. Many of the Roman temples
are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
temples, or uncovered, with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
columns placed in the front of niches, composed with antae, or pier-
formed ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on
which the cupola rests. They also adopted coupled columns, broken and
recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
decoration of their palaces and baths, as we may infer from the ruins of
Adrian's villa at Tivoli, and the excavations of Pompeii.

The Roman Corinthian, like the Greek orders, consisted of three parts,
stylobate, column, and entablature, but the stylobate was much loftier,
and was not graduated, except in the access before a portico. The column
varied from nine and a half to ten diameters, and was always fluted with
twenty-four flutes and fillets. The height of the capital is a diameter
and one eighth; the entablature varies from one diameter and seven
eighths to two diameters and a half. The portico of the Pantheon is one
of the best specimens of the Corinthian order. The entablature of the
temple of Jupiter Stator, like that of the Pantheon, is two diameters
and one half. The pediments are steeper than those made by the Greeks,
varying in inclination from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. The
mouldings used in Roman architectural works are the same as the Grecian
in general form, although they differ from them in contour. They are
less delicate and graceful, but were used in great profusion. Roman
architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding carved, and every
straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical subjects in
relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and animals, with
a variety of other things. The great exuberance of ornament is
considered a defect, although when applied to some structures it is
exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars architecture had
a character of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in
all the leading public buildings, columns generally forming the
external, and arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric
arose on the ruins of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of
Nero, which ministered to debauchery, by structures of public utility.