CHAPTER I
HELLENIC CIVILISATION

The use of the term Hellenic can be traced back to the seventh century B.C. It was the name under which the various streams of migration—AchÆan, Æolian, Dorian, and Ionian—merged their differences in the proud recognition of a common race.

The date and extent of these migrations are clouded with obscurity; but certain points are clear. The Ionians came from Armenia and settled in Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, while the other three penetrated into Greece from the shores of the Baltic. The AchÆan was the first to arrive and had maintained a long civilisation before the later migration of Æolians and Dorians. The Dorian invasion seems to have been especially aggressive and after fastening a hold upon the mainland of Greece extended to the Ægean Archipelago, overrunning Crete and wresting supremacy of the Mediterranean from the Minoan Sea-Kings about 1000 B.C.

Hellenic, however, never implied a national bond. The Hellenes were never united as one people under one government. Hellas was a congeries of independent states which even allowed their colonies, from the first, complete self-government. The bond which loosely held them together was the common sense of superiority to all other races; and as their civilisation developed, a common pride in its glory, not that this was sufficient to prevent continuous rivalry and frequent warfare between states and cities. Consequently, there is properly speaking no such thing as Greek history; nor would it be profitable for our purpose to trace the rise and decline of the several states. It is better to consider Hellenism as a principle, the more or less common ideal of a people, not confined to Hellas, but spread over the littoral of the Mediterranean; wherever Hellenes settled—a race of mariners and merchants, thinkers and artists, who lifted themselves to so high a pitch of civilisation, that it became a source of inspiration to all subsequent culture.

In the Minoan and MycenÆan Age the political system was a monarchy that combined the functions of high priest and commander-in-chief. In the Homeric Age there were still kings who led their armies and acted as the intermediaries of the gods, but their power was controlled by a Boule, or consulting assembly. With the Dorians the rule of kings passed to that of oligarchies, chosen from one or more of the noble classes whose claim to government was founded on birth and the ownership of land. They were associated with a Boule, representative of the privileged classes, while the priestly functions were exercised by magistrates, who, however, were drawn from the aristocracy.

In many parts of Hellas the oligarchies gave way to “tyrannoi.” These are not to be understood in the sense that our word “tyrant” has. They were a step in the evolution of popular government, inasmuch as they were a means of breaking up the exclusive authority of the privileged classes. To consolidate their own power, the tyrannoi sought the favour of the populace and made concessions in the direction of popular government. Accordingly, while some of the tyrannoi were succeeded by a return to the oligarchies, in more cases they prepared the way for a democratic form of government.

In order to take religion out of the exclusive domain of the aristocracy, the tyrants established popular cults. Peisistrates, for example, tyrant of Athens, is thought to have established the Great Dionysiac festival and raised the PanathenÆa to the position of the chief national festival of the Athenian State. Everywhere the tyrants were the patrons of literature and the arts. To Peisistrates is attributed the first critical edition of the text of Homer, while under the encouragement of himself and his successors (the Peisistratids) which lasted from 560-511 B.C. architecture and sculpture also progressed to a degree that made possible their grandeur in the “Great Age.” He is also said to have encouraged Thespes, the Attic poet, to impersonate characters and thus convert the narrative poem into dramatic form, laying the foundation of Greek drama.

Peisistrates also gave the people a constitution, extended the power of Athens by alliances, and increased its commerce. With the fall of the Peisistratids the rule of the many (hoi polloi) was assured. The government of Athens became democratic.

It is to be noted that while there were various forms of democratic government in Hellas, all differed from our modern conception of democracy. The latter is based upon the principle of doing away with privilege, while the Greek form implied privilege, although it enlarged its area. No foreigner could acquire citizenship, which also was denied to native-born inhabitants who were of foreign extraction, on either the father’s or the mother’s side. Furthermore, the Greeks regarded labour as a disqualification for political rights, and almost all unskilled labour and most of the skilled was performed by slaves. The latter, however, were well treated and not only enjoyed personal liberty but also the opportunity of becoming prosperous.

Again, the government under the Hellenic democracy was not representative. The citizen body was so small that all could meet in the Ecclesia and register their vote directly on any question. Appointment to office was by lot and not election, and accordingly the number of citizens who held at one time or another big or little offices included a great majority of the whole body. The result of this was an intimacy on the part of all the citizen body with the machinery of government and the pros and cons of every question as it arose. They voted with intelligence and their votes counted directly; a system which helped immensely to cultivate their intellectual keenness.

The two Persian invasions, the first under Datis and Artaphernes (490 B.C.) in the reign of Darius I, the second by Xerxes in person (480-479 B.C.), had proved the need of closer co-operation among the Hellenic States, and the Delian League was formed under the leadership of Athens and with Athens as the “predominant partner.” An annual tribute was paid by all the member-states for the maintenance of a fleet. Athens was the treasurer and the fleet was mainly Athenian, while the commanders were entirely so. The power thus concentrated in Athens gave her so marked a supremacy that Pericles used the League to form an Athenian Empire. This lasted about thirty years (461-430 B.C.), during which period Athens reached the culmination not only of her power but also of her magnificence. For Pericles spent the money, contributed by the allies for common defence, in beautifying the Acropolis; the excuse being that in doing so he was giving glory to Athena, who was the patron goddess of the League. Pericles also encouraged literature and counted among his friends three of the greatest Greek writers—Sophocles, Herodotus, and Thucydides.

But the power of Athens incited the envy of the other states, which ranged themselves with Sparta. In the Peloponnesian wars, the supremacy of Athens was broken and the Athenian Empire was succeeded by a Spartan Empire, which in time succumbed to the Theban Hegemony. Finally Hellas was conquered by Philip of Macedon and passed into the Macedonian Empire, established by this king and enlarged by his son, Alexander the Great.

Through all these struggles Athens, though despoiled of her supremacy, played a big part until she was conquered by Philip at ChÆronÆa, in 338 B.C. The latter date is adopted as the end of the Great Age which had lasted since 480 B.C., including within its circumference the age of Pericles. Besides its triumphant achievements in architecture and sculpture, the Great Age comprised in drama the names of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; in history, Herodotus, Thucydides; in oratory, Demosthenes; in philosophy, Aristotle and Plato. Meanwhile, the century preceding it had produced, among the poets, Anacreon and Sappho; and, as representatives of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and metaphysics, Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, and HecatÆus of Miletus.

It is significant that none of these last named poets and thinkers belonged to the mainland of Hellas, but to the islands and cities of the Ionian group or to the adjacent Cyclades. And what is true of literature is equally true of architecture and sculpture. In fact during the fifth century B.C. and also the three preceding centuries, culture had been more developed in Ionia than in Attica. For, through its commerce with the East, Ionia reached a high state of prosperity and borrowed something of Eastern luxuriousness as well as Eastern thought and art ideals, just as in turn the East borrowed from it. Miletus was for a long time the wealthiest and most luxurious of Hellenic cities, rivalled only by Sybaris on the gulf of Tarentum; one of the flourishing cities of the so-called Magna GrÆcia in the south of Italy.

Similarly Corinth under the rule of her tyrants, Cypselus and his son Periander (657-581 B.C.), had enjoyed a period of great prosperity. She extended her trade from Asia Minor and Egypt to Magna GrÆcia in the west, and was also a great industrial centre, famous for its pottery, metal work, and other decorative crafts. Moreover, it was reported to have “invented” painting.

These brief references serve to emphasise two points: first, the wide spread of Hellenic culture; and, secondly, the variety that it exhibited. The most cherished sentiment in Hellas, as we have remarked, was that of autonomy. Even under the hegemonies and empires, individual cities and colonies were permitted self-government and, as its corollary, self-development. Hence the variety in unity that characterised Hellenic culture. The unity was strengthened and the variety diffused throughout the whole by the Festival-contests which were held at regular intervals. These originated in local religious festivals, which in time were thrown open to competitors from all parts of Hellas.

The oldest and the greatest was the Olympic Festival, held in the valley of the river AlphÆus in Elis, which was celebrated at intervals of four years. The event became so important in the life of Hellas that the interval of four years between one celebration and the succeeding one, called an Olympiad, became the measure for computing time, the first Olympiad being reckoned as 776 B.C. Originally the festival was held in honour of Hera, to whom a temple—the earliest as yet known in Hellas—was dedicated, 1000 B.C. Later the chief honour was paid to the Olympian Zeus. His temple, which in time contained the celebrated chryselephantine statue of the god by Pheidias, stood in a sacred grove, the Altis, which was adorned with statues of the successful athletes, made by the most famous sculptors. The sacred enclosure was surrounded by walls and colonnades, adjoining which, on one side, were the gymnasium, palÆstra, and baths for the use of the athletes, whose training in the sacred precincts lasted for ten months, before they could compete in the stadium. The latter adjoined the Altis on the east side.

From all parts of Hellas, states and cities vied with one another in furnishing competitors and, as the date of the Festival approached, heralds proclaimed throughout the Hellenic world the “Truce of God” under which, for the time being, warlike operations were suspended and safe conduct was guaranteed to all visitors to Olympia.

The influence of Sparta had regulated the character of the contests of endurance: running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, to which in time was added chariot racing. But as the spirit of culture spread the Olympian and the other festivals included musical contests, while the poet declaimed his verses and the painter showed his work for the pleasure and profit of the assembled multitudes.

The Olympic festival, in fact, was the supreme realisation of the Hellenic ideal: perfection of physical development, joined to highest intellectual development and the finest development of the senses. It was an ideal that involved the possible perfection of the whole man, a harmony of body, senses, and intellect—the Hellenic ideal of Beauty.

Olympia, wrote Lysias, is “the fairest spot on earth,” and, surely, in the loveliness of its natural setting, in the embellishments which the architect and sculptor had added, in the glory of the youthful vigour of the competitors and the inspiration of poets and musicians, and, not least, in the joyous enthusiasm of the spectators was realised, as perhaps nowhere else at any time, the Beauty of Life; the idea, as Plato taught, that the Good is the Beautiful, the Beautiful the Good.

Such was the Hellenic ideal. And an ideal, need one add, is not an aim that is actually achieved but one beyond our capacity to achieve wholly, that yet gives continuous incentive to higher and nobler effort. This ideal of the possible perfection of man in all his parts is the highest to which man has ever aspired and the Hellenes of the Great Age came the nearest to achieving it. Hence their example has become to succeeding ages Classic.

Having this ideal, the Hellenes translated it as far as possible into visible form. No athlete could compete at Olympia unless his body and his character were free from blemish; no statue or temple must be erected except as the finest possible expression of organic perfection.

For the beauty involved in the Hellenic ideal is organic beauty. Everything about Olympia, as everything about a Hellenic Temple, must perform its function in the organic beauty of the whole.

Further, it is to be noted that in the pursuit of this ideal the Greeks did not rely upon the feeling of the senses, nor yet upon the judgment of the intellect; but upon a union of the two. They submitted the inspiration of the senses to processes of reason. In a word, they intellectualised their sensations. It is this which has made the expression of their ideal Classic.

It is not necessary for our present purpose to trace the ebb and flow of the influence of this ideal through the centuries. But we may observe that while the Romans despoiled Hellas of her works of art and imitated, as far as they could, the externals of her ideal of beauty, the Arabs, Moors, and Saracens in later years more intimately imbibed its spirit and gave their own expression to it. Italy, however, in the latter half of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth, came nearer than any other nation to both the spirit and the form of Hellenic culture. For her scholars and artists were more inclined to emulate than to imitate the example of the Greeks and tried to incorporate the Hellenic ideal into their own lives.

On the other hand, the Classical revival which began toward the end of the eighteenth century and has continued intermittently to our own day, has for the most part made the mistake of imitating instead of emulating. Artists have tried to copy the form, without imbibing the spirit. But form so used is like the letter that killeth; without the spirit that giveth life.

Meanwhile, there are indications that the world to-day is going to approach nearer to the Hellenic ideal than ever before and in some respects to better it. For there was a flaw in the latter. It despised labour and denied workmen a share in government. Its democracy was merely an extended aristocracy and, since those privileged to share in it received payment while filling office, it has been said that “the majority of the Athenian citizens were salaried paupers.” On the other hand, the theory, at least, of modern society is the honourableness of labour, and one of the best recognised problems of to-day is the shaping of conditions in order that labour may in truth be honourable—a blessing and not a curse, enhancing the beauty of the worker’s life instead of starving it. In fact, the modern world in adopting anew the Hellenic ideal of the beauty of the whole life is going to carry it further, to include the whole life of the whole community.

Moreover, our hope in being able to revive the Hellenic ideal and even to carry it farther consists in the fact that the foundation of our progress, as of the Greek, has again become reason, and reason established on a wider and firmer basis, owing to the immense development of modern science. And, while science encompasses every field of human thought and activity, its tendency is more and more directed to promoting the health and happiness of life. It is aiming anew at the Hellenic ideal of physical, moral and mental perfection, not confined to a few, but embracing whole communities and peoples.

There was a further flaw in the Hellenic system. It relegated women to an inactive position in the public affairs of life. Women were excluded even as sight-seers from the Olympic Games. The Greek worshipped the physical in woman, but refused development of her intellectual faculties. Their ideal was, in fact, centred in a single sex; it could not breed and perpetuate itself. But to-day the idea is spreading that this is a woman’s as well as a man’s world, and that to approximate to the ideal of human perfection needs the full, free, and independent co-operation of the woman and the man.

In conclusion let us note how in one respect the Hellenic ideal still transcends our own. There was a logic in the Greek, to which we have hardly yet attained. It practically amounted to this that “a tree is known by its fruits.” If a thing is good physically, morally, and mentally, it must naturally manifest its goodness so that it can be appreciated by the senses. Beauty must be made visible and audible. The possibility of the ideal must be made familiar to all, in literature, song, dance, drama, and the arts of beautiful design.

To the Greeks Æsthetics, the study of what is appreciated as beautiful by the senses, was not a separate department of life, as it is apt to be with us, but only another aspect of morality and religion. It was the natural and inevitable expression of the inward spirit of the ideal. How could a man’s life reach its highest possibility if it did not love and seek after beauty; how could a city be truly great unless it were manifestly beautiful?

One can hardly imagine a Hellen, who wished to retain any reputation for intelligence, asserting, as many people are satisfied and even seem proud to do in these days: “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like.” To this it is on record that an artist retorted, “And so does a cow.” Which would have been the sort of retort that a Hellen might have made to the speaker, whom he would at once determine was a person of low intelligence.

For Greek art, as we have already said, was not an expression solely of the senses; but of the sensations guided by the intellect; and it was just as much a part of a Greek’s intellectual training to know and understand and feel—in a word, appreciate—art, as it was to fit himself for other services to the State. Yet, do not forget it, the Hellenes were a race of traders and manufacturers, like the backbone of our communities to-day.

CHAPTER II
HELLENIC ARCHITECTURE

We have noted in the previous chapter that Hellenic art, like Hellenic culture generally, was a product of the senses guided by the intellect—the expression of intellectualised sensations. To his crude sensations the artist applied very much the same process that the modern scientist has applied to crude oil, until, through experiments guided by observation and reasoning, he has developed refined oil, which gives the purest and intensest possible illumination. Thus the Hellenic artists, through generations, refined upon the forms of their architecture, to create a unity, distinguished by fitness, proportion, harmony and rhythm, until they brought it to the highest degree of expressional capacity; appealing alike to feeling and to reason. It reached its highest expression in the temple, the supreme monument of the community’s civic consciousness.

The developed form of the Hellenic Temple resembled the Egyptian in being a product of the “post and beam” principle of construction; but differed in its purpose that the outside rather than the inside should present superior dignity of design. The chief feature of the latter was the Order, as it is called in Hellenic and Roman architecture, or combination of columns and entablature. It might be confined to a portico at the entrance or supplemented by another portico in the rear, or still further extended by a colonnade that surrounded all

four sides of the cella or domos, house of the god, in which case it is called a peristyle.

The emphasis of the order as a constructive and decorative feature has been traced back by some students to the Dorian people’s primitive custom of worshipping in groves. The religious ceremonies, which included a procession of the worshippers, would be conducted amid the trees surrounding the altar or shrine, and in time a roofing of cross pieces thatched with boughs may have been attached to the trees. Accordingly, those who adopt this view suggest that when the use of a grove was succeeded by a constructed temple, the original feature was the peristyle. And possibly there is a commemoration of this in the peristyle of the Parthenon, where a procession of worshippers of the goddess is represented in the sculptured frieze that embellishes the outside of the walls of the cella—thus embodying in the most highly developed form of Hellenic temple its origin in primitive religion.

The character of the form seems to have originated in wood construction, certain features of which—to be referred to later—were retained after stone or marble was employed and were translated into details of decoration. The gradual transition to materials of construction, less at the mercy of fire, is hinted at by Pausanias, a Greek geographer and writer on art of the second century B.C., in his description of the Heraion or Temple of Hera (Juno) at Olympia, the oldest known example of a Doric Temple, attributed to 1000 B.C.

The cella wall, he says, was constructed of sun-dried bricks on a lower course of stonework, but the entablature was still of wood, covered with terra-cotta. One wooden column was still standing in the opisthodomos, but elsewhere as the wooden columns decayed they had been replaced by stone ones; the design of their capitals showing that the work of restoration lasted from the sixth century to Roman times. The roof was covered with tiles. The cella was divided into a central nave and side-aisles by two rows of columns for the support of the roof, and the aisles were intersected by small screen walls; thus forming alcoves, corresponding to the side-chapels of a Gothic cathedral. In one of these alcoves German explorers in 1878 discovered the Hermes of Praxiteles, which is probably the only marble statue in existence that was actually wrought by the hands of one of the great sculptors.

Early Doric Examples.—The Dorian migration pushed down through Macedonia and Thessaly into the peninsula of Greece and spread through the islands of the Ægean as far as Crete, afterward planting colonies at PÆstum and other sites in Southern Italy and at Syracuse, Selinus, and Agrigentum in Sicily. Throughout all this wide area they carried their particular style of Order—the Doric. In developing it, they brought into play what has been judged their distinguishing trait of character—sense of proportion.

The earliest known examples of Doric temples, built originally of stone, are at Corinth and that of Phoebus Apollo on the island of Ortygia, at the entrance to the harbour of Syracuse. In these, which are attributed to the seventh century B.C., the columns are monoliths with widely projecting capitals, and set so close together that the intercolumniation was less than one diameter of the column. For the early Greeks appear to have been distrustful of the bearing capacity of stone as compared with wood.

Belonging to the sixth century are the colossal Temples of Zeus at Selinus and Agrigentum and the Temple of Poseidon (Neptune) in PÆstum. In the last the columns are composed of sections or “drums,” and there are still in position in the cella the smaller columns, superimposed on the main ones for the support of the roof.

The temples of the fifth century are distinguished by increased refinement in the matter of proportion and details and by superior skill and workmanship. They include the Temple of Athene (Minerva) on the island of Ægina; the so-called Theseum, supposed to have been dedicated to Heracles (Hercules), in Athens; and the Temple of Zeus which forms one of the group of temples at Olympia. It is the most complete temple-group yet discovered, and was the scene of the religious ceremonies in connection with the Pan-Hellenic Games.

With the second half of the fifth century began the supremacy of Athens in the affairs of Hellas under the rule of Pericles, which enabled her as custodian of the Hellenic treasury to undertake the beautifying of the Acropolis. This culminated in the Parthenon, the noblest example of the Doric style and, as Mr. A. D. F. Hamlin writes, “the most faultless in design and execution of all buildings erected by man.”

Following, apparently, the tradition of worshipping in groves, the Dorians placed their temples in a temenos, or enclosure in which were other shrines, altars, and treasuries. Whether this temenos was on a hill-top, as in the case of the Acropolis in Athens and the site of the temple-group in Agrigentum, or in a valley on sloping ground as at Delphi, the irregularities of the ground were taken advantage of in the disposition of the buildings. Thus was created an ensemble in which art and nature united, while in the case of a level site, as at Olympia, Delos, and PÆstum, the temples were grouped in picturesque irregularity.

Temple Plans.—The nucleus of the temple plan was the naos, containing the statue of the deity. Adjoining it were other chambers, connected with the ritual of worship; and this aggregate of naos and chambers, enclosed within walls, is known as the Cella.

It was approached from the front, which faced the east, by a covered, columned vestibule, open at the sides, called the pronaos. This was often repeated at the rear under the name of epinaos, or, as the Romans called it, posticum.

The pronaos was entered through a portico. When the latter was composed of columns, set between the prolonged sides of the cella, the type of plan was called in antis.

When the side-walls were not prolonged, but terminated in pilasters, known as antiÆ, and the supporting members of the front faÇade were solely columns, the type was called prostylar or prostyle.

If, under the same conditions the portico was repeated at the rear, the type was called amphi-prostylar or amphi-prostyle.

If the whole were surrounded by a colonnade or peristyle the type was peripteral; while if a second row of columns were added on each side, as in the great Temple of the Olympian Zeus, erected in Athens during the Roman occupation, the type was dipteral. The external aisle, formed by the colonnade on each side was known as the pteroma.

Where there was no peristyle, but columns, known as false or engaged, were built into the wall of the cella, the type was pseudo-peripteral.

There are also to be mentioned the octagonal plan, as seen in the Tower of the Winds in Athens; the circular peripteral plan of the Tholos at Epidauros and the examples of irregular planning presented by the Erechtheion and PropylÆa.

The type was further distinguished by the number of columns—four, six, eight, or ten—composing the portico, as, respectively, tetrastyle, hexastyle, octostyle, and decastyle.

Thus the Parthenon is octostyle peripteral; Temple of Poseidon, Paestum, hexastyle peripetral; of Jupiter Olympios, Atucus, octostyle dipteral; of Apollo, BassÆ, in antis.

Temple Form.—The cella, or chamber for the god, was built originally of wood; later of sunburnt bricks on a lower course of stonework, the whole being coated with a thin layer of stucco, as is found to have been the practice also in later Doric temples in Sicily and Italy, where the material was soft stone. To protect it from the damp of the ground as well as to dignify it, the cella was raised on a platform, approached by steps.

On the top of the walls was laid a framework of timber sills, crossed by transverse beams, on which stood posts to hold the ridge-piece, from which the rafters sloped to the sills, so that the roof which was of wood, covered with sunburnt brick and later by tiles, formed eaves to protect the cella from the roof-rain.

The next step to add dignity to the entrance would be to prolong the gable end in front and support it by posts, so as to form a porch or portico. At first the weight of this might be chiefly carried by an extension of the side walls. Then a superior effect of lightness and dignity would be given to the portico by omitting the support of the sides and substituting posts; while, for further embellishment, a similar portico might be extended from the rear of the cella.

Then, in the search for dignity and also to give more protection from weather to the walls of the cella, the eaves of the roof would be further prolonged outward and made to rest on sills that were supported by a series of posts. In this way the cella was completely surrounded by a colonnade or peristyle.

As the use of stone or marble was adopted, the platform became the stylobate, which was approached by three steps, carried along the entire length of all the sides. The cella was built of marble or stucco-covered stone, and marble or stone took the place of the sills and beams of the roof, but the latter continued to be constructed of wood, supported by small columns resting on the capitals of larger ones. The outside sheathing of the roof was of terra-cotta or marble tiles. Unlike the roof of an Egyptian temple which was raised in the centre to admit clerestory windows, that of a Hellenic temple had an uninterrupted slope. Whence then was the light derived for the interior?

Lighting.—Since all roofs, being of wood, have perished, the explanations that have been attempted are purely conjectural. A remark by Vitruvius, the Roman architect and author of ten books on architecture, regarding the Temple of Zeus at Athens that it was hypÆthral (open to the sky) has led to a suggestion that part of the roof may have been open, as in the case of the Pantheon in Rome. But, at the time he wrote, the cella was exposed because Sulla had carried off to Rome some of the supporting columns. Another Roman writer, Strabo, describes the decastyle Temple of Apollo near Miletus as hypÆthral, but gives as the reason the enormous size of the cella, in which precious groves of laurel bushes grew. So, it is purely a surmise that the portion of the roof may have been omitted and that the temples were hypÆthral.

Another theory, founded upon the discovery in a temple at BassÆ of three marble tiles, or thin slabs, pierced with holes about 18 inches by 10, is that some five of these, let into each side of the roof, would have lighted the interior amply without admitting much rain. Again, the use of marble tiles has afforded a suggestion that, Parian marble being very translucent, the light might have penetrated through. James Fergusson, on the other hand, conjectured that a trench was let into each side of the roof; but this would have needed drains to carry off the water and no sign of a system of drainage has been found in any temple. Other authorities, however, maintain that it was only through the open doorway that light was admitted, which owing to the clear atmosphere of Greece and the reflection from the marble pavement, would be sufficient.

The Orders.—In Hellenic architecture there are two fully developed Orders—or combinations of Columns and Entablature—the Doric and the Ionic. To these are usually added a third, the Corinthian, which, however, though invented by the Hellenic artists, did not receive its full development as an independent order until employed by the Romans. The principal members of the classic column are the capital, shaft, and, except in the Doric order where the shaft was set directly on the stylobate, the base.

Doric Column.—It is possible that the Dorians took the character of their column originally from the example of Minoan architecture. For in a fresco at Cnossos appear the faÇades of three temples with columns, and the representation of the latter corresponds with the facts discovered in the actual remains of the palace. The columns are of wood, and have no base, since the shaft is let into a socket in the masonry. It is crowned by a torus, or circular cushion with a half-round edge, on which rests a square block, the abacus. The shaft differs in one respect, it narrows downward; whereas all Hellenic columns taper upward. The reason assigned for the Cretan practice is that the tree-trunk was inverted so that it might retain the sap.

All these features are reproduced in stone in the columns of the doorway of the Tomb of Atreus at MycenÆ, which has been already mentioned. The shafts of these columns are decorated with chevrons, whereas the Greeks in their best examples never decorated the shaft, nor, in fact, any other part of the structure that carried the chief strains.

Upon this crude type the Dorian architects continually improved until they had evolved an order of the most subtle refinement. In the earlier examples the diminution upward of the shaft is more pronounced than in the Parthenon, where the diameter at the bottom is 6 feet 3 inches and at the top 4 feet 9 inches, which gives a diminution of slightly over one quarter of the lower diameter. The shaft, except in one or two temples that were not completed, was always fluted. The flutes usually numbered twenty, and were elliptic in section, meeting in a sharp edge or arris, thus differing from the flat-edged fillet that separated the flutings of the Ionic and Corinthian. In order to correct the optical illusion, suggested in a diminishing shaft, that the contours are concave, they were made slightly convex, the swell of this entasis, as the convex is called, being greatest at about one-third of the distance from the bottom.

As the shaft nears the capital, it is encircled by a narrow groove or annula. At the top of the shaft is a series of annulÆ, some of which are cut in the shaft and others in the lower member of the capital, the echinus, so that the shaft appears to project in a necking, into which the capital is set. The echinus is a circular cushion with an eccentric curve; a curve, that is to say, that is not part of a circle. (Compare by contrast the semi-circular curve of the torus.) Upon the echinus sets firmly the abacus, a square block with a side measurement the same as the diameter of the echinus.

The height of the column varied in its proportion to the lower diameter. In the Temple of Poseidon, at PÆstum, the height is four times the diameter; in the later example of the Parthenon nearly five and a half times, while in the Temple of Jupiter NemÆus it is six and a half times.

The intercolumniation, or space between the columns, also varies. In the older temples it was about one diameter of the column, the space between the angle columns being always less; while in the case of the Parthenon the distance varies from one diameter to 1.24; this being an instance of deviation from geometrical regularity to be referred to later.

It remains to mention the antÆ. These were flat, right-angled columns, projecting slightly from the wall of the pronaos at the corners, facing the end columns. While they correspond to the latter, they differ in three respects. The shaft did not taper and was set on a small base, while the capital was distinguished by different mouldings. For the mouldings suitable to a free-standing column, supporting actual weight were felt to be unsuited for a member attached to a wall, whose functions were decorative.

Doric Entablature.—The principal members of the entablature are the architrave or supporting member, the frieze or decorative member, and the cornice or protecting member.

The architrave, as its name implies, “the chief beam” of the entablature, rests immediately upon the abacus; its edge corresponding neither with that of the abacus nor with the top edge of the shaft, but so adjusted to both as to ensure a feeling of complete stability. The architrave was usually plain[1] and crowned with a projecting fillet, called the tÆnia, which beneath the triglyphs, is supplemented by a lower fillet, known as the regula. On the under side of the latter were six studs, which recall perhaps the wooden pegs with which the ends of the beams in primitive construction were fastened.

The frieze is a vertical surface, composed alternately of triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs, so called because they are divided into three vertical channels, represent the ends of the primitive longitudinal sills of the cella roof; and a recollection of the woodworker’s craft was still preserved in the chamfer or hollow of their outer edges. The function of the triglyphs was to support the cornice. Generally they were set above and between the columns, but at each end of the entablature one adjoins the corner, thereby increasing the effect of stability.

The space between the triglyphs, called the metope, was originally left open, except for a wooden shutter to keep out birds. But in the most elaborate examples of later date the metope was decorated with sculpture in high relief. Those of the Parthenon contained groups, representing fights with Centaurs, Amazons, and Trojans.

Above the frieze was the cornice, which, as a protection from the drip of the roof, projected to a distance, about one-third of the diameter of a column. Its chief members were a vertical band, known as the corona, and an under-part, the soffit. The latter sloped down under the corona at about the same angle as the slope of the roof, and was decorated above each triglyph and metope with a mutule or square block, studded with eighteen guttae, or drops, a device that recalls the method of making fast the ends of the rafters with wooden pegs.

The cornice was carried up the two sloping edges of the roof, but here distinguished by an additional feature, the cymatium or gutter. The triangle or gable thus formed by the three cornices was called the pediment. It was embellished at the top and ends with small pedestals, acroteria, on which stood figures or conventional ornaments.

In a Doric temple the corona, on the sides of the building was without a cymatium, but studded instead with ante-fixae, ornaments of terra-cotta or marble, placed opposite the end of each tile-ridge of the roof. The latter, as we have already noted, was covered with tiles of marble or terra-cotta, and finished at the top with ridge-tiles.

The mere reading of these details is dry enough. They should be read with an eye on the examples illustrated but also with a mind constantly alert to think out the function and appropriateness of each feature. For the principle of Hellenic construction was that every member should perform a special function. The architect’s logic would not permit him, as we say, to send a boy on a man’s errand or waste a man by employing him at boy’s work, still less to confuse the responsibility for the function between two or more members. Accordingly, the student who is reading intelligently will assure himself at each step as to what particular responsibility was laid upon each member and how appropriately it was fitted to its function.

Ionic Order.—From the grandiose simplicity of the Doric order we pass to the slenderer and more graceful and decorated order of the Ionic. It is almost like passing from a masculine to a feminine type: from a reflection of the severe discipline of the old Dorian, as perpetuated by the Spartans, to the more pleasure-loving and elegant life of the wealthy Ionians; from the grave influence of the Olympian Zeus, chief god of the Dorians, to the grace of the youthful Apollo and Artemis, beloved of the Ionians.

For the Ionic order, as the name implies, was developed by the Asiatic Hellenes whose migration from Armenia has been already noted. From them the Greeks of Europe borrowed it. Among the earliest known examples are a Temple of Apollo at Naucratis, in Egypt, and the archaic Temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, both belonging to about 560 B.C. The remains of the latter are in the British Museum. They include two capitals, inscribed with the name of Croesus, who is known to have contributed to the temple.

As in the Doric order, the Ionic temple rested on a stylobate of three steps, but the column is also provided with a base. The latter was usually composed of two tori, of semi-circular profile, separated by a concave moulding or scotia. Sometimes, as in the Erechtheion at Athens, the base stood upon a square, flat base-block, or plinth. Frequently the tori were embellished with horizontal flutings or the interlacing wave-lines, called guilloche.

The Ionic shaft was proportionately higher than the Doric, being from 8 to 10 diameters in height as compared with the 4? to 7 of the Doric. Consequently, the entasis was less. The intercolumniation was sometimes as much as two diameters. The shaft was incised with twenty-four narrow flutings, separated by flat-edged fillets.

The capital usually commenced with a narrow convex moulding, called the astragal, which was often enriched with the alternate bead and spool ornament. Above this was the echinus, decorated with the egg-and-dart pattern. But the echinus is only partly visible, since it is encroached upon by the main feature of the capital, a fillet that passes across the face and at the sides winds inward upon itself, forming a volute, which projects beyond the echinus. Above this was a low abacus, enriched with ornament, on which set the architrave.

In some instances, as in the Erechtheion, the fillet forms a looping curve, the volute is enriched with intermediate fillets and the necking is decorated with the anthemion ornament.

The Ionic capital presented awkward features which the ingenuity of the architects never quite succeeded in disguising. In the first place the abacus projected beyond the face of the architrave which from the side view offered an unsightly appearance. Secondly arose the problem of treating the volutes of the corner columns, so that the effect might be symmetrical on both sides of the building. This was solved by converting the side end of the capital into another face, the adjacent volutes at the corner being brought out at an angle of forty-five degrees. This results in an awkward arrangement at the back where two half-volutes intersect each other at right angles.

The Ionic architrave consists of two or more fasciÆ, or vertical faces, projecting one over the other. This recalls the original wooden construction and suggests that the Ionians used planks, while the Dorians used a single beam. It was crowned with small mouldings, frequently enriched with ornament.

Above this was the frieze, sometimes left plain, at other times enriched with sculptured reliefs. It was joined by a moulding to the cornice.

The latter, in the simpler form adopted by the Athenians, consisted of a plain corona, a fillet of bead-and-spool ornament, a row of egg-and-dart moulding, and the cymatium or gutter, which was often embellished with lion heads.

In Asiatic-Ionic examples, however, the cornice was more elaborate: a row of narrow blocks or dentils, crowned with a carved fillet, being inserted beneath the corona, while, further, the cymatium was embellished with a repeat of the anthemion decoration. This style is distinguished by the term Ornamented Ionic.

The origin of the dentil may probably be traced to the Lycian Tombs, where they are represented by the ends of the beams of the roof or gable. The volute appears as a decorative feature on the faÇade of the so-called Tomb of Midas in Phrygia. It also occurs as a decorative feature in Assyrian art and is found in the capitals of the small columns of a pavilion represented in the reliefs at Khorsabad. The motive of the spiral is also found in MycenÆan jewelry. Professor William H. Goodyear in his “Grammar of the Lotus,” suggests that the volute may have originated in successive variations of the Egyptian lotus patterns.

The Doric and Ionic orders were sometimes combined in the same building, as in the PropylÆa.

Corinthian Order.—The Corinthian order represents a still further advance in ornateness, which however by the Hellenic architects was confined to the capital of the column. For the base and shaft of the columns and the entablature followed the Ionic order. The embellishment of the capital may have been derived from the old custom of attaching metal ornaments or actual foliage to altars and pedestals; and it may be possible to trace the growth of the Corinthian style from the Ionic in the repeat of palmettes that occurs below the volutes in the capitals of the east portico of the Erechtheion. On the other hand, the general bell-form of the capital may have been derived from Egyptian lotus capitals.

The Corinthian order was used by the Athenians only in their smaller structures[2] and reached its most refined form in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. Here the flutings of the shaft terminate at the top in leaves that curve outward. Above them is a band that may have been covered with a bronze collar, from which spring a row of small lotus leaves. Then come eight beautiful acanthus leaves, between each of which is an eight-petalled rosette, suggesting a lotus-flower. They are surmounted at the corners by stalks of the acanthus, partly sheathed with leaves, that turn over with a spiral and form scrolls to support the abacus. The latter in the Corinthian order has concave sides.

The details vary so much in Hellenic examples of Corinthian capitals that, as we have already noted, the type had not yet been developed into an independent order. Its final development was worked out by the Romans, to whom its magnificence especially appealed.

Ornament.—The acanthus plant belongs to Southern Europe and the warmer parts of Asia and Africa. The common species found throughout the Mediterranean, has large, deeply cut, hairy leaves. As a decorative motive the Greeks first reproduced it in metal and then carved it in stone, using it with particularly fine effect on the upright form of tombstone known as stela. While they conventionalised the leaves, they preserved the character of vigorous and at the same time graceful growth. They gave a sharpness to the tips of the leaves that distinguishes their use of it from the Roman.

The anthemion ornament is often called the “honeysuckle pattern” from its resemblance to that flower. But it is supposed to be a conventionalisation of the flower of the acanthus, while related as a decorative motive with the forms of the Egyptian lotus and the Persian palmette.

The egg-and-dart border presents a repeat in which the form of an egg, set in a concave oval, alternates with a vertical bar that may or may not terminate below in a more or less pronounced arrow-tip. It permits the most subtle treatment of the planes of the egg, and of the contrast between the smooth surfaces and the sharpness of the other details.

The bead-and-spool repeat explains itself. It shows a variation, according as the conventionalisation was derived from a spool that is wound or that is unwound.

The heart-leaf, also sometimes called the lily-leaf, is a remarkable instance of the closeness with which the Greek artist studied nature and of the imagination he displayed in simplifying the natural form into a convention, while at the same time preserving the principles of its construction.

Projections.—Unlike Egyptian architecture, the Hellenic is distinguished by the number and importance of its projections; which may be compared to the lines, angles, and curves which constitute the features of a human face and give it expression. They are the means by which the architect engraves upon his buildings expressive designs of light and shade. We have already spoken of the projections involved in the column and entablature, but may now specifically enumerate the various types of moulding that these involve; noting at the same time the particular ornament that was employed on each, if it were decorated. For such was the logic and refinement of the Hellenic taste that it adopted motives of ornament that corresponded to the planes of the surfaces of the moulding.

Thus, when the moulding took the form of the cyma recta—a curve outward growing into a curve inward—Hogarth’s “line of beauty”—the decorative feature applied to it was the anthemion, whose curves have a corresponding direction. On the other hand, for the reversed form of moulding, known as the cyma reversa where the inward precedes the outward curve, they used the heart-leaf. Again, the moulding known as ovolo, in which the contour of an egg is followed, is enriched with the egg-and-dart.

The fillet, a small band used to separate the other mouldings, was usually left plain; as also were the simple hollow, called cavetto, and the deep hollow which separated the two tori in the base of columns. When the torus was embellished, the motives used on the semicircular surface were the interweave or plait, known as guilloche, or rows of leaves, tied with bands, so that the moulding resembled a wreath. Another small, separating moulding was the bead, which in contour approaches a circle, and, when decorated, received the bead-and-spool enrichment.

The distinction of the Hellenic use of all these mouldings and enrichments was the extreme delicacy of the cutting, which the hardness of the marble permitted and the clear sunshine helped to reveal; so that it has been said that “while the Hellenes built like Titans, they finished like jewellers.” But this did not involve a finicking precision, for it was but an instance of the feeling for proportion and choice relation of parts to one another that embraced the whole building.

Organic Relations.—The height of the building was thoughtfully proportioned to the length and width; the height of the shaft of the column was considered in relation to the diameter. Similar care was expended on the proportions of the several members of the capitals and entablature, and the intercolumniation bore relation to the lower diameter of the shafts. In every particular, great or little, the effort was to create a unified impression of organic harmony and rhythmical relations.

Now the term organic is primarily used of the living bodies of animals and plants, the parts of which are not only connected but perform certain functions in relation to the well-being of the whole. And it is an extension of this idea that the Hellenes applied to the geometrical harmony on which their architecture was based. They considered the functions of each part—the amount of support it gave or strain it had to sustain and so forth; and having made provision for this as constructors, they were consistent to the principle also in their Æsthetic consideration as artists. They modified the sculptural decoration according to the function of the parts; giving least to those whose function of support was most important and increasing the quantity and the boldness of the curving as the structural strain diminished.

Thus the shaft of the column was free of any carving except the fluting, which, however, served the purpose of channels to carry the rain water and helped to preserve the mass from decay. The capital in the Doric style was not enriched with ornament, and similarly plain, with very few exceptions, was the architrave. Meanwhile, sculptured figures in high relief were introduced into the metopes which originally had been openings, while the tympanum or flat surface of the pediment received groups of figures in the round. This increased boldness of relief, accompanied by foreshortening of the figures, was adopted to offset the diminishing effect that their greater distance from the spectator’s eye would otherwise have suggested. Moreover, in the sculptures, as in the carving of the mouldings, the varying quantities of light were considered. The mouldings on the outside of a temple in full sunlight were differently planned from those in the interior; and the shadow cast by the cornices was taken into account in graduating the relief of the sculptures in the metopes and pediments.

Nor was the actual work done by artists, but under their supervision by pupils and masons. From the records of payments made to the sculptors who worked on the Erechtheion it appears that they were ordinary masons, some of them not even citizens, who were paid for each figure the sum of 60 drachms, or 12 dollars!

Finally, the decoration of a Greek Temple comprised not only sculpture, but also painting. A large part of every Doric temple was covered with strong, bright colours, while certain prominent details were treated with elaborate patterns. The figures of the sculpture also were painted and relieved against a background of contrasted colour.

It has been discovered that the triglyphs were painted blue and the metopes red and that the mouldings were decorated with ornament in red, blue, green, and gold. The walls and the columns were probably stained yellow or buff, perhaps by the use of wax melted on the surface (encaustic).

Asymmetries or Refinements.—It might seem that, in the various particulars we have noted, Hellenic intellect and feeling had exhausted the possibilities of refinement. But there is yet another instance, which was first revealed by the detailed measurements of Hellenic temples made independently by two Englishmen, Francis Cranmer Penrose and John Pennethorne, and by a German architect, Joseph Hoffer. The results were published in 1838 and in 1851, and have been corroborated by other students. They are known as architectural “refinements” or “asymmetries.”

It had been assumed that, since the form of the temple type was apparently symmetrical, it also involved absolute symmetry of details; that geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy were the necessary and natural conditions of the architectural design. By those investigators, however, it was discovered that though the principles of geometry and mathematics were the foundation of the planning and designing, regularity and accuracy were purposely avoided; and that so far from the details being symmetrical they exhibit intentional asymmetries.

One of these irregularities is the substitution of curved for straight lines. We have already mentioned the entasis or swell in the vertical contour of the column—a fact not observed by modern architects until 1810; but curvature is also found in the horizontal lines of the stylobate and the architrave, frieze, and cornice, and in the gable lines of the pediments. And since these were discovered other variations of equal importance and significance have been found.

“In the Parthenon, for instance,” (the quotation is from the writings of Professor William H. Goodyear) “surfaces or members which are set true to perpendicular are most exceptional. Perhaps the end walls are the only exception. All the columns lean inward about three inches in thirty feet toward the centre of the building. The side walls lean inward. The antÆ, or flat pilasters at the angles of the ends of the walls, lean forward one unit in eighty-two units. The faces of the architrave and frieze lean backward, whereas the acroteria, the face of the cornice and the face of the fillet between architrave and frieze lean forward. Furthermore, the columns and capitals of the Parthenon are of unequal size, and the widths of the metopes and the intercolumnar spacings are also unequal.”

The discovery of these variations was pooh-poohed by architects who had been trained to believe that “correct” architecture depended upon geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy. They dismissed them lightly as “mason’s errors.” But this will not hold for three reasons. Firstly, these asymmetries only occur in the finest examples, where the design and the details are of superior refinement and the skill of the masons most unmistakable. Secondly, the number of variations increases pro rata with the superiority of the design, reaching their maximum in the Parthenon. And, thirdly, in cases which are unquestionably due to mason’s errors the amount of the variation is practically negligible. Is it likely, for example, that the masons who brought the two ends of the Parthenon within one quarter of an inch of being exactly equal in width, would have been so careless as to let the presumably horizontal lines curve up four inches on the sides of the buildings and two inches at its ends? Or, again, would they have committed so flagrant an error as giving the stylobate a convex curve upward, since it necessitated a corresponding curve to the base of each column, a most difficult and delicate operation of cutting? The perfect adjustment of these two curves, by the way, is one of many arguments against the theory that these variations were caused by settlements in the foundations or, in the case of the Parthenon, by the explosion which wrecked it in 1687, when it was being used by the Turks as a powder magazine.

The fact having been established that these variations were intentional, how are they to be explained? A generally accepted explanation of the curvatures in place of straight lines has been that they were intended to correct an optical effect of curvature in the opposite direction. Thus, if the contour of a column shaft were a straight line, it would appear to the eye to curve inward; similarly, the horizontal lines of the stylobate and entablature would appear to sag downward. Accordingly, the “refinements” were designed as optical corrections of optical effects of irregularity; in other words, geometrical effect is supposed to have been sought by departures from geometric fact.

This, however, would not explain the other variations that have been noted. Moreover, it is contradicted even in the case of curvatures by a discovery of Professor Giovannoni of Rome, that the faÇade of the Temple at Uri has a curvature in plan.[3] The columns, that is to say, are not set to a straight line but to a curve which is concave to the exterior; consequently the entablature is correspondingly curved, the effect of which to the eye as it looks up is the very one that it was explained the architects strove to avoid—a sag downward from the ends. In this case they deliberately designed the faÇade to produce the effect.

This explanation of optical corrections, then, as well as others, have been proved erroneous by Professor William H. Goodyear, who has made a life-long study of the subject and carried his investigations also into Gothic architecture, in which, as we shall see, he has discovered numerous instances of refinements and asymmetries. His explanation, supported by a wealth of conclusive evidence which is set forth in his “Greek Refinements,” is that the motive was Æsthetic. The refinements were modulations designed to please the eye by avoiding the inartistic effects produced by formal monotony. They were planned to do away with the monotony and rigidity that result from geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy and to introduce a suggestion of elasticity. They imparted to the structure something of the irregularity that characterises organic growth. It is because, with rare exceptions, they are not found in modern classical buildings, that the latter appear by comparison so stiff and formal.

These asymmetries, in fact, were intended to offset the liability of the beauty’s becoming “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection, no more.”

With few exceptions the Hellenic temple was oriented; its four sides facing exactly the four points of the compass, the principal entrance being on the east. It opened into the cella which was usually divided into what may be called a nave and side aisles by two rows of columns which carried smaller columns that supported the pitch of the roof. Where the cella was narrow, as in the Temple of Apollo Epicurios (“The Helper”) at BassÆ, near Phigaleia, the rows of columns were replaced by half-columns, attached to projections from side walls. The cella was occupied by the statue of the deity, which in the case of the Parthenon was the Athene Parthenos, the Maiden Athene, one of the most renowned works of Phidias. The draped figure of the goddess was represented standing, armed with helmet, spear and shield, supporting in one hand a WingÈd Victory. The statue was about forty feet high and of the kind known as “chryselephantine,” the draperies and accessories being of gold plates, the flesh parts ivory, with precious stones inserted in the eyes.

Behind this statue was the entrance to a small room, situated between the cella and the opisthodomos, an exceptional feature from which the name of the temple was derived. It was the Parthenon proper, or Virgin’s Chamber, which seems to have been used as a treasury. Its ceiling was supported by four Ionic columns.

The Ionic order in conjunction with the Doric was also employed in the PropylÆa or monumental gateway of the Acropolis. This masterpiece of Mnesicles presents an irregularity of plan, exhibiting the Hellenic architect’s readiness to adapt his design to the peculiarities of the site. While Doric columns mark the exterior, Ionic were used in the interior to dignify the central passageway. A similar use of this order for interior embellishment was adopted by Ictinus, the chief architect of the Parthenon, in his otherwise Doric design of the Temple of Apollo Epicurios.

On the other hand, the Ionic order was employed on the exterior of the Erechtheion, another work of Mnesicles also irregular in plan. It occupies a sloping site on the Acropolis, where an older temple, burnt by the Persians, had stood. Spoils of the Persian conquest were preserved in it with other relics, held in special veneration. The nucleus of the design is a cella without colonnades (apteral), the sanctuary of Athena Polias (the City’s Guardian) and of Erechtheus (a mythic hero of the Athenians) and the Ocean-god, Poseidon. The exterior is distinguished by two Ionic porticoes, and by a third, a smaller one, in which the columns are replaced by caryatides, six draped female figures whose heads support the architrave. All these figures face south, the three to the west resting their weight on the right legs; the three eastern on the left—in each case the outer legs—thus giving to the outer contour of their bodies the effect of entasis.

Another Ionic example on the Acropolis is the Temple of Athene Nike (Victory), known as the Temple of Nike Apteros; the term “Wingless,” however, not describing the statue of the goddess but, as used above, the style of the design—without colonnades.

Theatres.—Only second in importance to the Hellenic temples were the theatres. Both served as memorials of the ancient traditions of the race and as an incentive to higher citizenship. For the drama, which had its origin in religious observances, was a civic institution, maintained by the state and free to all citizens.

The origin of the Greek drama is to be found in the primitive worship of Dionysos, the god of productiveness, and to the last the Greek stage and auditorium perpetuated in their form some trace of their religious origin. The nucleus was an altar consecrated to Dionysos. In earliest times each family may have erected its own altar, presided over by the father of the family as priest. Later each community would have its official priest, and on the god’s feast-day all the villagers would move in procession to the common altar, headed by the priest and a choir of singers, trained by him. The altar reached, the priest would mount the pedestal, surrounded by the choir, while the body of worshippers disposed themselves around the spot. The priest would recite the greatness of the god and at intervals the choir of voices would chant the dithyrambic song, moving around the altar and accompanying the song with rhythmic movement of body and limbs.

From this root of a religious drama in time grew successive stems. The prowess of some hero would be adopted as a theme. At first the priest, or it may be some wandering poet, would narrate the story; later he would treat it in the first person, impersonating the hero, sometimes engaging in dialogue with the chorus. Still later, other personages in the story would be separately impersonated, and so the scope of the dramatic representation developed.

Meanwhile the affair still maintained a semi-religious character; the place of presentation was still around the altar of Dionysos and the chorus was retained, taking its part in the action with explanation and comment, still delivered, however, in dithyrambic measure and with accompaniments of rhythmic gesture. The platform of the altar being limited in space, the dialogue was usually confined to two actors at a time, though a third was sometimes allowed. If there were other characters involved, these actors would often “double” the parts; disguising themselves by change of costume, especially by the use of masks. This demanded some kind of a screen behind which the actors could change their costumes and also wait until their presence was required. Skins hung upon poles would at first serve the purpose, or a skene or tent, from which we derive our word scene, might be used. Whichever it were, it would interfere with the view of the action from the back and so draw the audience to the “front.”

The most important remains of Hellenic theatres are the Theatre of Dionysos,[4] cut out of the side of the Acropolis, and the theatre at Epidauros, in Argolis, Greece. The plan of the theatre of Dionysos is that of a semi-circle, the ends of which are prolonged for a short distance in a direction at right angles to the front of the skene. Within the horseshoe was the circular orchestra, still whole at Epidauros, in which the main action was carried on by actors and chorus. A different plan is given by the Roman architect, Vitruvius. It is to be noted, however, that Vitruvius lived in the reign of Augustus, by which time what was pure Hellenic had become modified by foreign influences into Hellenistic. He relates, for example, that in his time the height of the logeion or speaking platform—the stage of to-day—was from 10 to 12 feet. In earlier times, including probably the period of the Classic drama, the logeion was the platform around the altar, supplemented possibly by a platform two or three feet high extending across the front of the skene, from which, at certain points in the play, some, at least, of the actors spoke. This platform, being in front of the scene and enclosed at the sides by projections of the latter, was called the proskenion, from which is derived our word proscenium with its different meaning.

By the time that the Hellenic theatre had evolved into a permanent structure, the skene, originally a temporary screen, took the form of an architectural background, some ten feet high, with a central door for the entrances of the actors. But the idea of the original screen was perhaps retained in the row of columns which stood a little in front of the skene, and could be used, if needed, for the hanging of curtains or even of painted cloths. Meanwhile, the roof of the portico, which extended from the columns to the skene, could be utilised by the actors at certain stages of the drama.[5]

The interest of the discussion raised by Vitruvius’ description consists in the question how far the actors mingled with or were separated from the chorus, which continued to occupy the orchestra or circle on the floor of the auditorium, corresponding to the place of the orchestra stalls in a modern theatre. The orchestra of a Greek theatre was originally the sole “stage,” but gradually, as the dramas involved more complexity of scenes, the actors would vary their position between the orchestra and the proscenium; and later, in Hellenistic times, as the religious origin of the drama was forgotten and the use of a chorus began to fall into abeyance, the use of the proscenium would increase.

Finally, when the Romans began to imitate the Greek drama, they dropped the chorus; the acting was confined to the proscenium, and the orchestra no longer needed for the play, became a part of the auditorium, reserved for distinguished spectators. The Roman theatre, in fact, like our own, represented the complete separation of the audience and the stage.

Odeion.—Supplementing the theatre was the Odeion or concert hall, which was constructed on the same general lines but distinguished by the addition of a roof for acoustic purposes. The oldest known is the Skias at Sparta, so called from its roof resembling the top of a parasol. The Odeion of Pericles, which served as a model for subsequent halls, was built on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis, its roof being made in imitation of the tent of Xerxes and constructed of the masts of Persian vessels, captured at the battle of Salamis. The most magnificent example, however, was erected A.D. 162 on the southwest slope, by a wealthy citizen, Herodes Atticus, in memory of his wife. Its ceiling is said to have been composed of beams of cedar, carved with ornament, while decorations in the form of paintings and other works of art embellished the interior, which had accommodation for eight thousand persons.

CHAPTER III
ROMAN CIVILISATION

Such empire as Hellas achieved was succeeded by the Roman Empire. The earlier, as we have seen, was an empire loosely founded on kinship of race, ideals, and character, and on common interests of commerce. It was an empire of individualism; preserving the individuality of cities and their individual states, producing a few men of rare individuality and, as it spread throughout the Mediterranean, planting colonies which maintained their independence both against the Motherland of Hellas and the people in their immediate surroundings. It was, from the first, an empire of the spirit and, as such, survived its physical dissolution and has maintained its dominion over the human mind even to the present time.

On the contrary, the Roman Empire, in so far as it succeeded, was an empire of constructive organisation. It grew, cell by cell, each added cell becoming gradually impregnated with the life-principle of the earliest one, so that every part of the unwieldy body was an organic part of the whole. Thus, in time, each independent city and its adjoining community, alien races and huge slices of foreign territory, became gradually absorbed into the practical system of government that originated with the little settlement of Latins which first occupied the Palatine Hill and then extended its authority over the seven hills of Rome. Part after part became absorbed into the system of the Lex Romana and enjoyed the benefits of the Pax Romana. The Roman citizenship, judiciously extended over the whole empire, carried with it substantial rights and equally substantial duties. The provinces of the empire contributed men of learning, generals, and statesmen to the central government. In time some of the provinces, notably those of Spain and Southern France, became more characteristically Roman than Rome herself. They had absorbed her system and her culture, and, far removed from the petty intrigues which convulsed the capital, reached a degree of civilisation that represented the finest product of the Roman ideal; an ideal that included individual uprightness, a sense of service and self-sacrifice for the common weal, and a high regard for order. It was a practical ideal, little concerned with abstractions, not devoted to excessive refinement, but centred on the effectual accomplishment of the individual and collective requirements of everyday life.

It is true that this ideal was never fully achieved. This is only to say that the ideal was truly human and therefore at the mercy of human chances and weaknesses. Moreover, that it was really an ideal; a principle of life, that is to say, which by reason of its bigness was only possible of partial achievement. And if the Romans failed in achieving theirs, they failed nobly, and with sufficient success to have left behind them a legacy of law and order and constructive principles of government that, like the cultural ideals of the Hellenes, survive to the present time.

And the Roman Empire played a part in the progress of the world, more immediately necessary than that of Hellas. The latter’s Empire of Spirit was in advance of its age. The world outside of the scattered outposts of Hellas was too rude, too backward in the very necessaries of life, to accept its message of beauty. Recognising this, the Hellenes called all other races and nations barbarians and held aloof from them. The Romans, on the contrary, absorbed the aliens, instilled into them the rudiments of their own civilisation, while taking advantage of any good trait in the people themselves, so that they helped them to rise out of themselves to a higher plane of living. In a lawless world they became the great exponents of order, the upbuilders and engineers of a system of organised society, and so firmly did they lay the foundations and so strongly did they build that, although subsequent hordes of barbarians overthrew the dominion of the empire of Rome and laid waste many of the visible signs of her building, the destroyers were gradually absorbed into her system and became its continuers.

Therefore, when we consider the Romans specifically in relation to architecture, we look back to them as tireless and prodigious builders, constructors, and engineers, whose sense of beauty in architecture, as well as their aspirations in all branches of higher culture, were derived from the Hellenes. Their respect for the latter was such that so long as possible they tried to treat them as an independent power, with whom they could pursue the mutual advantages of commerce. Gradually, however, the tangle of politics made absorption necessary, and after a series of invasions Hellas herself became a province of the Roman Empire.

War, in those days, as for centuries after, involved the barbarous practice of looting, and the Romans, with their shrewd instinct for acquiring what they most needed for their own development, bore back home in increasing quantity the treasures of architectural and sculptural art. Later, as the power of Hellas dwindled, Rome became the centre to which Hellenic artists and scholars flocked.

The conquest of Hellas and gradual absorption of a part of her culture occupied the second century before the Christian era and the earlier years of the first. By this time, however, Rome herself had become a prey to the rivalries of political factions, beginning with the conspiracy of Sulla and ending with the civil war that followed upon the assassination of Julius CÆsar. The latter’s great-nephew, Octavianus, in conjunction with Marc Antony, conquered Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in Macedonia and Octavianus assumed authority over the West, while Antony established himself as ruler in the East. But his infatuation for Cleopatra raised the suspicion in Rome that he intended to marry her and make himself despot of an Oriental empire with Alexandria as its capital. War was declared against him as a national enemy and he was defeated at Actium, B.C. 31. The authority of Octavianus was now supreme. Republicanism, as a practical form of government, was dead. Conditions demanded one-man rule and Octavianus, in B.C. 27, resigned his office as Triumvir and received from the Senate the title of Augustus, which hitherto had been reserved for the gods.

During this period of struggle the Hellenic influence had been rapidly growing. The sons of the ruling class had Greek tutors; many studied in the schools of Athens and Rhodes, and Roman writers began to emulate the Greek authors. CÆsar published his Commentaries on the Gallic War and on the Civil War; Sallust wrote on the Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jugurthine War and Cornelius Nepos compiled biographies of eminent men. Cicero published under the name of “Philippics” the speeches which he made against Antony in the Senate, as well as “Letters” to various friends on the topics of the times, while Lucretius composed in verse a treatise on the “Nature of the World” and Varro was the author of an encyclopÆdic work relating to the history, geography, agriculture, law, literature, philology, philosophy, and religion of the Romans. To Varro also had been assigned by Julius CÆsar the collection of a public Library of Greek and Roman writers.

The enthusiasm for literature was encouraged by Augustus and his minister, MycÆenas, who saw in it a means of allaying the bitterness of party strife. To this, the “Augustan” or “Golden Age,” as the writers called it in flattery of their patron, belong Horace, Livy, and Virgil.

In an effort also to lead the people back to the honourable simplicity of their forefathers, Augustus revived the ancient religious ceremonies and restored the temples. He became chief pontiff and, being regarded as the son of the deified Julius—in reality, his great-nephew—was treated almost as a divinity in Rome and deified by the provincials who built temples in his honour.

It was in the Augustan Age that Roman architecture virtually commenced and its developments are associated with Imperial rule. Of the period immediately preceding the new era Mommsen writes as follows: “There was in the world as CÆsar found it much of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp and glory, but little spirit, still less taste and least of all true delight in life. It was indeed, an old world; and even the richly gifted patriotism of CÆsar could not make it young again.”

Rome, the heart of the Empire, was corrupt. The ruling class coveted pensions from the public exchequer to be spent on luxurious living; while the mass of the populace clamoured for “panem et circenses”—feeding and shows at the public charge. To satisfy their hunger both classes would have taxed the provinces. But among the chief duties of the emperors were the development of the resources of the provinces and the protection of the frontiers; and, while the best of the emperors performed these functions from high motives, even the worst found it politic to court the growing power of the provinces. Thus, the main vitality of the empire was in its extremities, and, although the emperors beautified Rome, they also encouraged public works of utility and beauty in the provinces. To this end a law was passed, permitting municipalities to receive bequests and gifts from private individuals. In the liberality with which wealthy provincials enriched their communities, Dr. Ferrero, the latest historian of Rome, has seen a parallel to the munificent public gifts of American millionaires.

Accordingly, this great era of Roman building left its impress not only upon Italy, but in Greece and northward as far as the Danube, in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, along the whole Northern coast of Africa, and in Spain, France, and Great Britain as far as the Firth of Forth. It was distinguished not only by the magnitude of the operations but also by their character.

Whereas in Egypt the architectural works had consisted of temples and tombs; and in Hellas these had been supplemented by theatres and odeia; while Assyria and Persia left their memorials in palaces, those of the Roman Empire embraced all of these types and many more. The Romans applied architecture to the practical needs of everyday life, and reinforced it with engineering. They overlaid the Empire with fine trunk-roads, many of which survive to-day; constructed sewers; spanned rivers with bridges; conveyed water in countless miles of aqueducts; erected fora and market-places, triumphal arches, temples, palaces, villas, baths, basilicas, theatres, and hippodromes; providing alike for the necessities of life, the needs of government, and the amusements and luxuries of living.

To accomplish so prodigious an amount of building the Romans systematised the methods of construction in regard to both the labour and the material. The labour was mainly of an unskilled kind, including soldiers of the legions, slaves, and subjects liable through debt or other causes to statute labour. This employment of unskilled labour was made possible by the Roman habit of carrying the principle of repetition of motives to its utmost limit, and also by the methods of construction which they invented.

This was the extended use of concrete. During the Republic the Romans had followed the Greek method of building with large blocks of stone, unconnected with mortar. Their practical spirit, however, urged them to make a more economical use of materials and instead of composing the walls entirely of blocks of stone or marble, they used these or bricks as a facing, filling in the thickness of the wall with small fragments of stone mixed with lime or mortar.

They had been led to this practice by the existence of pozzolana, a volcanic product of clean, sandy earth, found in Rome and in greater quantities at Pozzuoli on the Bay of Naples, which, when mixed with lime, formed a concrete of exceptional hardness, strength, and durability. Material, approximating the properties of pozzolana and lime, was procurable in all parts of the Empire. Accordingly the use of this method of construction gave a similarity to Roman building everywhere.

While the chief, and almost sole building material in Greece was marble, the geological formation of Italy supplied stone as well as marble and plentiful supplies of clay, which was converted into terra-cotta or bricks. The bricks were of two shapes: either square, from 1 to 2 feet in size and 2 inches thick or triangular in plan and of about 1½ inches in thickness. The latter were especially used for the facing of the walls, their pointed ends being driven into the concrete to form the smooth surfaces, while at the corners the points projected. In Rome itself the following materials were available: travertine, a hard limestone from Tivoli; tufa, a volcanic substance of which the hills of Rome are mainly composed; and peperino, a stone of volcanic origin from Mount Albano.

While Roman architecture was developed under the stimulus of Greek art and culture it probably owes its origin to the example of the Etruscans.

The origin of this race is uncertain, but its own traditions ascribe it to Lydia in Asia Minor, whence it may have passed during that general migration from Hellas into Italy about B.C. 1000. It was for long the dominant power in Italy, extending at various times over a territory that reached from the Tiber to the Apennines, and southward into Campania. This gave the Etruscans command of the Tyrrhenian Sea and made them commercial rivals of the Carthagenians. Their enmity toward the rising city of Rome would be natural and some authorities believe that the reign of the Tarquin kings was a period of Etruscan domination. Then the Romans expelled the tyrants, established a republic of their own, and by degrees wore down the power of the Etruscans, who had become enervated through increase of luxury. Their civilisation long antedated that of the Romans. The earliest remains of art, found in Etruria, are now believed to have been imported from Hellas; but the tombs have revealed a quantity of later art objects which prove this people to have been skilful in the modelling and colouring of terra-cotta, in mural paintings, jewellery, and household adornments.

“The houses of the earliest period, to judge by the burial urns, known from their shape as ‘hut-urns,’ were small single room constructions of rectangular plan, similar to certain types of the capanne used by the shepherds to-day. Probably the walls were wattled and the roofs were certainly thatched, for the urns show plainly the long beams fastened together at the top and hanging from the ridge down each side.” (EncyclopÆdia Britannica, “Etruria.”) Tombs erected even later than the fifth century B.C. were cut in imitation of a most simple form of post and beam construction. The elements of the decoration, such as capitals, mouldings, rosettes, patterns, etc., were borrowed from Greece, Egypt, and elsewhere.

The architectural remains comprise tombs, city walls, gateways, bridges, and aqueducts, the walls of which are remarkable for their cyclopean masonry, while the general character of the construction resembles the early work of Tiryns and MycenÆ.

No example remains of Etruscan temples, but Vitruvius has described them. The plan was nearly square and the cella was divided into three chambers, since it was in groups of three that the Etruscans worshipped their deities. The columns represented in rude form the Doric order, set so far apart that it is concluded they were surmounted by beams of timber. A further distinction of the Etruscan temple, adopted by the Romans, was the replacing of the stylobate by a podium. This was a continuous pedestal or low wall on which the columns were carried. It was approached in front by a flight of steps, enclosed between the prolongation of the side-walls of the podium. The most famous example was the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, dedicated B.C. 509, which contained three chambers, for the statues of Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno. It was destroyed by fire B.C. 83, and rebuilt by Sulla, who brought over for the purpose some of the Corinthian columns from the temple of Zeus Olympius in Athens. (See p. 122.)

Until recently the great sewer, or “Cloaca Maxima,” of Rome, constructed about B.C. 578, has been attributed to the Etruscans and considered a proof that they introduced the use of the arch to the Romans. But in 1903, when excavating the Forum, Commendatore Boni proved that the drain was originally uncovered and that the arch, which consists of three rings of voussoirs, each 2 feet 6 inches high, was added at the end of the Republic. “Thus the honour, not of discovering the arch, for it was known in the East, as we noted, but of popularising its use, does not belong to the Etrurians, though they did use it at a comparatively late time for city gates, as at Volterra.” (EncyclopÆdia Britannica, “Etruria.”)

Following Augustus, the emperors under whom Roman architecture chiefly flourished were: Nero (A.D. 54-69), Vespasian (69-79), Trajan (98-117), Hadrian (137-138), Septimus Severus (193-211), Caracalla (211-217), and Diocletian (284-305). By Constantine (306-337) were inaugurated two changes of policy, which affected the destinies of the world. For by granting toleration to all religions he raised Christianity to equal footing with paganism and thus paved the way for the power of the Church; and in establishing his capital at Byzantium took the first step in the partition of the Empire into East and West. Aided by his vigorous efforts, architecture, which had declined, enjoyed a measure of revival, in which, as we shall see later, the Church began to play a conspicuous part.

With the commencement of the fifth century, A.D., began the irruption of Barbarians. Attila’s Huns swept like a scourge over Europe, while the German tribes conquered the provinces in turn and occupied them. In 455 Rome was sacked by the Vandals. In 476 Odoacer was proclaimed by his troops King of Italy, and thus the Western part of the Empire was finally separated from the Eastern. This is the date selected to mark the “Fall” of the Roman Empire. Meanwhile the steady decline of the power of the emperors had been long in process and was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the power of the Popes. Henceforth, during the “Dark Ages” of civil confusion, the influence and authority of the Church were the chief sources of social as well as religious organisation.

The Roman ideal of civilisation received its most characteristic architectural expression in the several fora, beginning with the oldest—the Forum Romanum. From ancient times it was the heart of the city; the centre of civil activity; the scene of some of the most stirring incidents in the growth of Rome; in later times the nucleus of the pomp and pride of the Empire. Here at some time was erected a cylindrical monument in three tiers, the Umbilicus or Navel of Rome, and hard by it stood the Milliarium, a marble column, sheathed in bronze and inscribed with the names and distances of the chief cities on the great trunk-roads that radiated throughout the Empire from the thirty-seven gates of Rome.

Between these two monuments extended a platform, decorated with the bronze beaks of conquered vessels and hence called the Rostra, from which any citizen could speak who had aught to say concerning the commonweal. For it faced the Comitium or open space, which from earliest times had been the meeting place of the General Assembly of the people. It is true that the voice of the people was too often dominated by the Patrician class whose Curia or Senate House overlooked the Comitium; but the Comitium continued to represent, at least, the theory of Roman Government and to be the veritable nucleus of the Roman Forum.

Since the Forum embodied the ideals and the progress of Rome, its architectural aspects were continually changing throughout the more than one thousand years of Rome’s vicissitudes. But without attempting to follow these changes—many of which are shrouded in obscurity—let us try to picture the Forum in its general aspects and particularly as the embodiment of the Roman ideal.

The ancient citadel was the Capitoline Hill on which in early times had been erected the temple already mentioned to the three divinities of Male and Female Power and of Wisdom—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. It corresponded to the Acropolis of Athens and her Parthenon. But whereas the Parthenon was the nucleus of the Hellenic ideal, as embodied in architectural glory—the embodiment of an ideal, detached and lifted up above the common life—the formal grandeur of Rome descended from the Capitoline Hill and occupied the low ground that separated it from the Palatine, so that it might identify itself with the practical, everyday ideals of the city.

And, first, for the purely practical. The southern side of the Forum was in early times bordered with the tabernÆ or wooden booths of the butchers and other produce merchants, while on the north were the shops of the gold-and silversmiths, and money changers. The Forum, in fact, was the central market of Rome and came to be its financial centre, and, as a necessary result, the centre also of legal and judicial procedure. In later times, as the volume and intricacies of business increased, the tabernÆ were replaced by basilicas, which included halls of justice and of exchange for merchants. Meanwhile, let us try to picture the Forum as the embodiment of Roman ideals.

It was bounded on both sides by the Via Sacra, or Sacred Way; the two forks uniting near the foot of the Palatine Hill, around which the Sacred Way continued to its junction with the Appian Way. Its stones were sacred because they had been trod by the countless hosts of Rome’s victorious armies, returning in triumphal procession to pay their homage to the deities of Male and Female Power and of Wisdom upon the Capitol.

As the soldiers swept out of the Appian Way, they would skirt the spot, where in later times arose the Colosseum, and the roadway was spanned by the Arch of Constantine, and a little farther on by the Arch of Titus. From this the road advanced in an easterly direction and then turned north.

Then from earliest times two objects would greet the victors’ eyes. Upon the right stood the arch of two-headed Janus, god of gates and doors. It was all but a certainty that its two doors would be standing open; for, although this army was returning victorious, there were others almost continuously engaged on the frontiers of the empire. So the soldiers, glutted with fighting and hungry for the sight of their loved ones, would turn more eagerly to the left, where rose the circular temple of Vesta, guardian of the home and hearth. It was the symbol of the ideal of sane and simple home life, on which the greatness of Rome was founded, and as the Vestal Virgins thronged the steps of their convent or atrium, hard by the temple, the eagles would be lowered and every bronzed warrior would salute the maiden priestesses, who, in their absence, had kept perpetually alive the sacred fire.

Just beyond this spot in later times CÆsar Augustus erected a Triumphal Arch. Meanwhile, from Rome’s early days the victorious hosts would next defile past the Temple of Castor and Pollux, memorial of the victory gained at Lake Regillus with the help of these twin gods. Close by it came to be erected the Temple of CÆsar, in front of which the great Julius caused a rostrum to be placed, from the steps of which the oration over his dead body was spoken by Marc Antony.

At this spot the veterans would enter the Forum proper, welcomed by the cheers of the merchants; in old times, from the fronts of their booths and later from the porticoes of the Basilica Æmilia on the right and the Basilica Julia on the left. Then, both early and late in Rome’s history, would be reached the ancient Temple of Saturn, god of seed growing and the bounties of the soil, a god of meaning to the soldiers, for many a veteran had been left behind in distant lands, planted upon farms that were to consolidate the power and prosperity of the Empire. Moreover, in some of the chambers of the Temple, which formed the official Treasury of Rome, a part of their spoils of war would be deposited.

The procession by this time is filing past the Comitium, filled with enthusiastic crowds, while orators welcome it from the rostra and the Senators are ranged in ranks upon the steps of the Curia. The roar of welcome is still in the ears of the host as it begins the ascent of the Capitol, passing under the Arch of Septimus Severus, if the date be after A.D. 203. Midway of the ascent, it passes the Temple of Concord, memorial of the termination of the internecine struggle between the Patricians and the Plebs; skirts the Tabularium, wherein the archives of the Empire were preserved, and finally reaches the summit of the Capitol.

Let us take one glance back before the picture fades. The scene is superb but not without confusion. The Romans paid no attention to orientation; consequently there is little uniformity in the placing of the several structures. They vary not only in size and design, but also in the direction which they face. In the contracted space the various edifices seem crowded. Indeed, the conjectured restoration of the Roman Forum and vicinity suggests rather a medley of magnificence.

But even in this respect the character of this heart of Rome, lying between the Capitoline and Palatine hills, symbolised the magnificent variety of elements that composed the Empire. One may find some parallel to Rome’s confusion of appearances in the variety and, for the most part, lack of an organic lay-out in the modern London, the present mother-city of an Empire, founded, like the Roman, upon commerce, and like it in having grown, cell by cell, transcending it, however, not only in size but in grandeur. For the policy of the British Empire has gradually evolved beyond the Roman, substituting for the process of absorption the principle of free, self-governing dominions.

Courtesy A. S. Barnes & Co. from “A History of Art,” by William H. Goodyear

CONJECTURED RESTORATION OF THE FORUM ROMANUM

Looking N. E. to the Capitol. On Left, Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Basilica Julia. Right, the Curia. At the End, Temple of Vespasian