Architecture

15.10.
2018 S r Ban ster Fletcher’s Global H story of Arch tecture
M les, Margaret M. "Class cal Greece, c. 500–400 BCE." S r Ban ster Fletcher’s Global H story of
Arch tecture. Ed. Murray Fraser . London: Bloomsbury V sual Arts (UK), 2018. Bloomsbury
Arch tecture L brary. Web. 15 Oct. 2018. <http://dx.do .org/10.5040/9781474207768-016>.
Accessed from: www.bloomsburyarch tecturel brary.com
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15.10.2018 S r Ban ster Fletcher’s Global H story of Arch tecture
Classical Greece, c. 500–400 BCE

by Margaret M. Miles
DOI: 10.5040/9781474207768-016
Page Range: 227–263
History and Geography

At the dawn of the fifth century BCE, communities around the Mediterranean Sea were
generally thriving. Well-established trade networks crisscrossed the sea. In mainland Greece,
the city-states – known as poleis – of Athens, Thebes (modern Thíva), Aegina and Corinth (often
at odds with each other) were flourishing economically; overseas in the Greek west, the poleis
in Sicily and southern Italy such as Syracuse (Italian: Siracusa), Gela, Akragas (modern
Agrigento), Selinous (Italian: Selinunte), Himera and Croton controlled rich agricultural areas,
and were prosperous despite their own local disputes. Olive oil, wine, wheat and salted fish
were mainstays in trade, together with luxury items such as ivory, perfume, incense, textiles and
other manufactured goods, including pottery and vessels made of precious metals. Rural
agriculture remained the primary basis for other local economies.
Providential geology provided sources of excellent building materials: white marble was
quarried on the Aegean islands Naxos, Paros and Thasos (modern Thassos), on the
Proconnesian islands in the Propontis, and from Mount Pentele and Mount Hymettos in Athens.
Marble had become part of the export trade already in the preceding Archaic Period, and often
sculptors and masons travelled with the stone to finish it at its destination. Good limestone for
local use was widespread: in Sicily, ancient quarries at Syracuse and at Selinous have been
documented. Timber was harvested from Macedonia in northern Greece, the Basilicata region
around the toe of southern Italy, and the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily. Outstanding individual
cedars destined for primary beams in temples could be purchased in Lebanon and from islands
in the Aegean. Iron ore was abundant on the island Elba in the west, and near Greek Trapezos
(modern Trabzon), in the southeastern corner of the Black Sea. Iron was used for tools, clamps
and dowels. Cyprus provided copper, with tin available from distant Cornwall and Afghanistan,
needed for bronze. Lead, used to surround clamps and dowels in construction, is a by-product
of silver mining. Clay beds are ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, with especially good clay in
Attica and Corinth.
Serious problems did exist for Greece, notably due to continual conflict with the powerful
kingdoms of Persia to the east and Carthage to the southwest. The east Greeks in Ionia (west
coast of modern Turkey) had already been subsumed into the Persian Empire and they yearned
for their old independence. Persian power and territorial control had expanded further since
the conquests of King Cyrus (r. 559–530 BCE); the Persian Empire extended from all of Asia
Minor to western India, Egypt to Thrace and the Black Sea, the largest empire then known.
When the Ionian Greeks rebelled against Persian control, Athenians, Eretrians and some others
sent help, but to no avail: the defiant Greeks were defeated by the Persians in 494 BCE at
Miletus (Greek: Miletos, Turkish: Milet), and the Persians began to reinforce and expand control
over Ionia and nearby Aegean islands.

King Darius of Persia decided to attack Eretria and Athens in 490 BCE, but his forces were
defeated at Marathon (in Attica, part of Athens) by Athenians and Plataeans in a battle that
became legendary for the courage of the defenders. Ten years later, the Persians came back,
led by Darius’s son King Xerxes, in an operation launched by land and sea. In the heroic battle
of Thermopylae, King Leonidas of Sparta held back the Persians in a pass with a band of 300
men, until a traitorous local man showed the Persians how to circumvent it, and the Spartan
force fought to their deaths. The invading Persians occupied much of central Greece, leaving a
path of burnt temples as they crossed through, and they sacked Athens, destroyed the city and
burned the temples on the Acropolis. The Athenians had evacuated to the nearby island
Salamis, and their leader Themistocles persuaded the combined Greek fleet to stand against
the Persian fleet: the Greek side won (480 BCE). The culminating land battle was then fought at
Plataea, where contingents from thirty-one Greek city-states contributed to the Greek triumph.
Victory dedications were set up at Olympia (modern Olimpia), Delphi and Isthmia and in many
local sanctuaries.
Meanwhile, in the Greek west a parallel set of events unfolded. The Carthaginians (of
Phoenician origin), who had been based in North Africa since at least the eighth century BCE,
had control over much of Sardinia, parts of southern Spain and the west coastal area of Sicily.
They competed with Sicilian Greeks, Etruscans in Italy and Phocians (Greeks) in southern France
for control over trade in the western Mediterranean. By the early fifth century BCE, the
Carthaginians were hoping to conquer Sicily – a culmination of extended trade wars. In a land
and sea battle at Himera on the north coast of Sicily, in 480 BCE, combined Greek forces from
Syracuse, Gela and Akragas led by Gelon defeated the Carthaginians, led by Hamilcar:
according to legend, on the same day as the Battle of Salamis. In Sicily, after the Greek victory
at Himera the Carthaginians were forced to pay reparations, and thousands of captured
soldiers were enslaved. These spoils were distributed to the victors, and contributed to the
consolidation of political power of individuals such as Gelon and Theron. The influx of money,
booty and manpower helped to underwrite ambitious building programmes in Syracuse,
Akragas, Gela and Himera. A new temple to Nike (Victory) was built at Himera, and new
temples to Athena were built in Gela and Syracuse. For the next seventy years, the
Carthaginians did not invade Greek-held Sicily, but instead expanded their territories along
northern Africa.
After the victory of 480 BCE, Syracuse dominated southeastern Sicily under the assertive rule of
the Deinomenid family – four brothers who intermarried with other prominent families and
placed much of Sicily and Rhegion (modern Reggio Calabria) in Italy under a pre-emptive, often
brutal form of rule called ‘tyranny’. Yet the Sicilian tyrants were also great patrons of literature
and the arts: they invited Pindar, Aeschylus and other poets to visit, they held festivals with
musical and theatral competitions, they were avid participants in the Olympic and Delphic
festivals, and they commissioned sculptural dedications to be set up there. The tyrants stayed
in control for the first third of the century; Hieron’s fleet defeated the Etruscans in a naval battle
near Cumae (modern Cuma) in 474 BCE, which effectively halted the spread of Etruscan power
further south into Italy. When the last Deinomenid died in 466 BCE, Syracuse became a
provisional democracy (of propertied citizens) and continued to grow in wealth and regional
power.
Back in mainland Greece, Athens had recently been sacked twice by the Persian forces, and the
sanctuaries and temples in the countryside (Attica) had been looted and burnt. Only a few
houses used by the Persians still stood. When the Athenians returned after the Battle of
Plataea, the first urgent action was to rebuild the city wall. As described by the Athenian
historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 1, chapters 90–3) every
man, woman and child pitched in, using whatever material was to hand. On the Acropolis,
broken statuary and pottery that had been set up as dedications to Athena was collected and
buried in pits, found in nineteenth-century excavations. Around the Agora (city centre), modern
excavators have found many wells and pits stuffed with household debris, mud brick, burnt
wood and ash from the cleaning up. The city, Acropolis and countryside had to be rebuilt, but
because of the importance of the fleet, a new primary harbour at Piraeus was another urgent
necessity.
Athens took the leading role in creating a defensive alliance in 478 BCE, the Delian League,
named for the island Delos (modern Dilos), sacred to Apollo, where the league’s treasury was
kept. Members contributed ships, men and money; initially they patrolled the Aegean in case
the Persians returned again, but over time, operations expanded throughout the eastern
Mediterranean. In 454 BCE, the treasury of the league was moved to the Athenian Acropolis,
and Athens ensured that payments in kind and coin (tribute) continued, even by force: the
league was becoming an empire for Athens. One-sixtieth of the tribute was dedicated to
Athena on the Acropolis; the rest went into a treasury to finance naval operations.
Besides this revenue, Athens was rich in silver mines, in the Attic district of Laurion (modern
Lavrion). The mines were leased out to contractors who worked them with chattel-slaves,
quarrying the ore, washing it in refineries and smelting it in furnaces near the coast. The bullion
was then either traded or minted into coins. The quantity of Athenian silver was extraordinary:
Aeschylus describes it as a ‘fountain of silver, a treasure-house under the earth’ (Persians, line
240). Olive oil was also an abundant product, but where Athens’s resources of Athens were
weaker was her grain supply. The city constantly had to import grain from conquered
territories, the Black Sea area or Egypt, and that requirement steered or even determined
policies, and spurred the development of harbours and shipsheds.
In contrast to Athens’s complex economic situation, Sparta did not use coinage nor engage in
much external trade. Sparta had conquered nearby territories that were worked by helots
(serfs) required to do the agricultural work, while full-blooded Spartans spent time training for
war. With steep mountain ranges as boundaries, their concerns about security were local, since
their system depended on the helots, who might (and occasionally did) revolt. Spartans lived
simply, without luxuries or ostentation, and they did not construct many buildings. Thucydides,
commenting on the relationship between architecture and power, remarks that, if future
generations were to judge Sparta by temples and foundations, they would not credit her
reputed power, because she did not have expensive temples and was little more than a
collection of villages; conversely, seeing Athens, they would assume the city was twice as
powerful as she actually was (Book 1, chapter 10).
Map 16.1. Classical Greece c. 450 BCE.

As Athenian power was increasing, and various alliances between city-states were created and
dissolved, the internal governance in many poleis was often contested. Already in 508 BCE,
Athens had become the first direct democracy of adult male citizens (in contrast to modern
representative democracies), and had no property qualifications; over time, participants were
paid for government service, including rowers in the navy and workmen in building
programmes. Besides a spectrum of democracies, oligarchies of various sorts prevailed in other
city-states. The internal political struggles within the Greek city-states led to disputes and at
times even bloody battles between democratically minded citizens and would-be oligarchs,
both with shifting groups of supporters. At stake, typically, was whether political participation
would be open to all native citizens, or restricted to those who owned a certain minimum
amount of property. The century’s political experience and efforts for stable regimes were
closely analysed by Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle and others; their accounts were later to
profoundly influence the creators of new governments in the early modern era.
Battles between the Delian League led by Athens against either Persia itself or Persian-
controlled lands (such as Egypt and Cyprus) ended by about 450 BCE. The Greek city-states
along the coast of Asia Minor could enjoy autonomy, for a while. Persia backed off from
Aegean affairs for some decades, but re-entered the fray decisively towards the end of the
century in the war between Sparta and Athens by supporting the Spartans with money to build
ships. Persia was not the only antagonist, for all the Greek poleis were suspicious of one
another. Thucydides states baldly that the truest cause of war between Sparta and Athens was
Sparta’s fear of growing Athenian power (Book 1, chapter 23, section 6), although he also
details many grievances and disputes among the two cities and their allies. Each Greek polis
wanted to be autonomous, and each also strove for honour and reputation, as well as pre-
eminence, wealth and power. An underlying feature of all aspects of ancient Greek culture is
agon (competition).
The war between Athens and Sparta intensified in 432 BCE, and came to include much of the
Greek world. Initially, Athens’s strategy (as articulated by Pericles in Thucydides’ account) was
to rely on her now superb navy, and stage raids against Sparta and her allies by sea. Sparta
invaded Attica each year and burned crops. The Athenians, including those living in the
surrounding countryside, retreated within their walls when so threatened. The parallel Long
Walls had been built to connect the central city with the harbour Piraeus, and people even
encamped along their length. In 430 BCE, the cramped conditions facilitated the spread of
plague, probably carried by rats on ships from Egypt. The plague returned twice more, and
killed at least one-third of the population. When the Athenians captured 292 Spartan hoplites
(heavily armed infantrymen) on an island near Pylos (modern Navarino) in 425 BCE, and held
them hostage, the Spartans were forced to stop their raids of Attica, and farmers could harvest
crops again. One of the captured Spartan shields has been found in the Athenian Agora, where
at one time they decorated the Stoa Poikile as a victory trophy. A peace treaty negotiated in
421 BCE (the Peace of Nicias) and observed for six years gave a pause to the worst of the
hostilities. Construction in Attic sanctuaries continued.
The Athenians decided in 415 BCE to invade Sicily, thus opening up a second large campaign,
and after two years they were decisively defeated, with catastrophic losses of men and ships at
Syracuse. But the Sicilians had only a short time to enjoy the relief of victory over the Athenians,
because the Carthaginians began new and successful invasions. They sacked Selinous and
Himera in 409 BCE (completely destroying the latter in revenge for the defeat of 480 BCE), and
Akragas and Gela in 406 BCE. It took more than a decade to defeat the Carthaginians and
restore Syracusan rule in southeast Sicily. By now, the Athenian-Spartan war had shifted to the
northeastern Aegean, dragging on to 404 BCE, and exhausting all belligerents. Athens was
defeated and humbled, and forced to take down her walls. Astonishingly, however, after only
ten years (394 BCE), Athens had regained some of her naval power and rebuilt the city walls,
with Persian financing and workmen drawn from other cities in Greece. But that was to be
Athens’s last building project for several decades.
Culture and Society

The Greek triumphs against their Persian and Carthaginian neighbours invigorated Greek
creative energy and confidence: the wars remained a primary cultural reference throughout the
century. The clashes sharpened perceptions of Greek identity, based generally on shared
language, religion and customs and a strong sense of kinship through many generations. A
keen appreciation of the value of political freedom and respect for rule by law was felt to be
distinctively Greek; ‘freedom’ was to become a political motif throughout the century. A new
sense of Panhellenism gradually emerged, based on a sense of cultural commonality among
Greeks from different regions. The struggle against non-Greeks, who were still an ongoing
threat, was reflected in the visual arts metaphorically with legendary and heroic episodes from
the rich store of earlier epic poetry: the Trojan War, battles with Amazons (‘Amazonomachies’),
the battle between the Gods and the Giants (‘Gigantomachy’), and the deeds of Herakles. The
increasingly elaborate decorative programmes of architectural sculpture expressed this sense of
heroic Greek triumph over a variety of exotic adversaries.
The sophistication of Persian culture was not despised, however. Earlier in the late sixth century
BCE, Ionian Greek craftsmen had helped to construct and decorate Darius’s palace at
Persepolis, and some architectural influences and shared decorative patterns can be traced in
Athens (see Chapter 15). The tent of Xerxes, part of the spoils from the Persian Wars, was
brought to Athens and may have been used as a temporary skene (scene building) for the
Theatre of Dionysos , then a slope with wooden seats on the south side of the Acropolis.
Pericles urged the construction of an Odeion (concert hall) adjacent to the theatre, which may
have been modelled on the tent, or on the 100-columned Apadana (reception hall) in Persian
palaces. Only one corner of the Odeion has been excavated.
In terms of intellectual endeavour and literature, the very idea of writing an extended narrative
history began in the fifth century BCE with Herodotus, a Greek from Halicarnassus (modern
Bodrum) on the coast of Asia Minor, who spent time in Athens. He eventually lived in Thurii in
southern Italy, a new city founded by Athens in 444 BCE but intended to be Panhellenic. He
and his younger contemporary Thucydides (of Athens) wrote models of historical narrative
which have not been surpassed.
Tragic dramas were written and performed in Athens as part of competitions in the festival of
Dionysos, by the likes of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and comic plays by Aristophanes.
These authors frequently mirrored in their plays anxieties about the trauma of war, the conflicts
between loyalties to family and to the state, or the absurdities of contemporary politics. Their
plays are relevant today, and still frequently staged. Aeschylus travelled to Sicily and wrote a
play Women of Aetna (now lost) to commemorate a new city founded by Hieron, tyrant of
Syracuse. Towards the end of the century, Euripides travelled to Macedonia, where he wrote his
masterpiece, The Bacchae, at the request of the Macedonian king Archelaos. In 427 BCE,
Gorgias of Leontini (in Sicily), a sophist (skilled in argumentation), came as an ambassador from
Sicily to Athens and introduced dazzling rhetoric when he spoke to the Assembly; eventually he
settled in Athens, and taught rhetoric and philosophy. Athens had not been especially notable
among Greek poleis in the Archaic Period, but now, in the fifth century BCE, became the centre
of Greek culture, attracting talented people from elsewhere as well as supporting her own.
Religion and art were closely linked in Greece at the time. The gods were included in
everything Greeks did – there was no separation between certain areas of life such as
governmental affairs, commerce, marketing or war, and religion. Even the word ‘secular’ (as
opposed to sacred) does not have an exact equivalent in ancient Greek. A primary
characteristic of what we would label as ‘art’ in the fifth century BCE – sculpture, painting,
formal architecture – is that it was created for a religious setting and was meant to be offered
to a god. That gradually changed in the following centuries, as art just for display, decoration or
collectors did emerge in some contexts. The gods were considered to be everywhere, at least
potentially, and were observers or participants in everything. The east frieze of the Parthenon
depicts the Olympic gods seated, relaxed and probably chatting among themselves, and
observing the Panathenaic procession and Athenian rites on the Acropolis. Free-standing
sculpture, paintings, gold and silver vessels, and even treasuries (small, temple-like buildings)
were set up as offerings, dedicated to gods in sanctuaries. Offerings could also be humble
objects, small terracotta statuettes, food offerings or clay models of food, or even just pebbles.
Figure 16.1. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece (c. 500 BCE–170 CE).
Section A illustrates the natural, steep drop-off on the southern side, which had to be filled in
with the massive platform for the Older Parthenon, and a retaining wall. That platform was
reused for the current Parthenon. Section B shows why the west is the easier approach to the
top.


The year was divided into lunar months, but there were no regular weeks; rather, what
punctuated daily life were festivals and scheduled sacrifices in sanctuaries. Many inscribed
calendars of sacrifice are preserved from the Greek world that detail what sort of animal (and its
price) should be offered to specified deities or heroes. Ordinary people served as priests or
priestesses, chosen by lottery in some sanctuaries, or by birth into particular families in others,
such as the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens. In Athens, religious authority was in the demos
(citizen body), which oversaw the running of sanctuaries and their finances. In many Greek
poleis, the temples served not only as repositories for the safekeeping of coins and bullion, but
also as centres of significant economic activity. The sanctuary could issue loans, with interest, on
behalf of the deity. Properties owned by the deity were leased for pasturage or harvest. In
Athens, Athena’s sacred olive trees needed care and maintenance. Financial accounts for
building construction of many sorts are well documented in preserved inscriptions.
For religious ceremonies, only an altar was essential, but a temple honoured the deity by
providing an appropriate setting, and housed the deity’s image. A strong sense of hospitality
lay behind the human attitude: the gods were urged to be present, to participate, and were
welcomed with offerings, incense and music. The temples were typically highly visible, very
colourful, and filled with dedications and commemorative offerings. As they became more
numerous in Greek landscapes, they took on additional significance: sanctuaries were
intersections of spiritual, economic, political and civic interests, and they intensely evoked a
sense of locality and community. Some became civic markers, constructed near borders or
frontiers with territorial implications. Temples were also built as coastal markers along
frequented sea routes.
In the typically mild Mediterranean climate, Greek life was lived mostly outdoors. In city
centres, the agora served not only as a marketplace but also a place of civic administration,
with facilities for citizen bodies to meet or groups of magistrates to work; numerous shrines and
small temples were built there as well. Among excavated agoras, the Athenian Agora (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.2) and the Agora of Thasos (modern Thassos) are illustrations of the extensive
and varied facilities needed for large urban centres of the fifth century BCE. Both were framed
with several stoas (colonnaded porches) that provided shade in summer and shelter in winter.
Private houses of the fifth century BCE were modest and simple, in contrast to the showy
monumental architecture in sanctuaries. A typical plan features rooms arranged around a sunny
central courtyard, constructed of fieldstone socles that supported whitewashed walls of mud
brick. The houses were the domain of women, who worked looms and oversaw other domestic
production. Larger houses might have a room set aside for entertaining male guests, an
andron, where symposia could be held. In urban centres, some houses also had workshop areas
for light industry. For rural farmsteads, compounds include places for food storage and
adjacent pens for sheep and goats. By the end of the century, Akragas (in Sicily) is said to have
had larger, more luxuriously furnished houses, and King Archelaos of Macedonia had a palace
at Pella , house-like but on a larger scale.
Figure 16.2. Layout of the Agora, Athens. Today the Agora excavations have been replanted
with trees, shrubs and flowers known to have existed in antiquity, as an archaeological park. In
the centre left is the Hephaisteion, and on the right is the Hellenistic Stoa of Attalos, rebuilt in
the 1950s by the American archaeologists as a museum.

Athenians proudly considered themselves autochthonous (native to the land), in contrast to

populations that had moved around, voluntarily or not; they saw this quality of belonging to a
particular place as promoting stability of purpose and resolve in military defence, as seen at
Marathon. For many Greeks, opportunities for mobility increased in the fifth century BCE,
through wars, trade, pilgrimage or travel for those with leisure. Artists, architects and
stonemasons, like poets and dramatists, were highly mobile and went wherever there were
commissions. Although regional styles in sculpture and architecture continued, in the course of
the century an ‘international’ style began to emerge, facilitated by mobile craftsmen.
Architecture
Military victories in the Greek world of the fifth century BCE were commemorated immediately
on the battlefield by setting up what was known as a trophy – captured arms and armour from
the enemy hung up on a post, tree or stump. For naval battles, occasionally a whole captured
ship might be dedicated (if it could be spared). These temporary markers were then
supplemented with more permanent dedications in local and Panhellenic sanctuaries: an
individual statue, statue groups, a base with captured items, gold tripods, images of gods;
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considerable variety could be encountered, especially at Delphi and Olympia. The most lavish
offering of all was a new temple, typically built at home in the victorious city-state, dedicated to
a helpful god. Hence many of the temples built in the period can be linked to commemorations
or victories, either as replacements for destroyed temples, or new construction financed by
booty or simply warranted as thank-offerings.
Figure 16.3. Athenian Acropolis of Athens. The heart of Athens is this almost flat, limestone hill
that rises above the central plain of Attica. On the top is the Parthenon, modern icon of ancient
Greece. From prehistoric times, the Acropolis was both a fortified promentory and a sanctuary,
dedicated to the goddess Athena.
Architecture As A Response to Victory

After the Battle of Marathon, Athens began construction of a new temple to Athena, on the
south side of the Acropolis: the Older Parthenon (Key Buildings, fig. 16.3). A Temple of Athena
Polias had been newly built just ten years before on the north side. In order to support the new
temple on difficult terrain, a platform had to be constructed to span the sloping bedrock, and
new quarries were opened up at Piraeus, near the coast, for some 8,000 limestone blocks in the
platform. The new temple was under scaffolding when the Persians invaded a second time,
sacked Athens and burned both temples. After the Greek victories at Salamis and Plataea, the
Athenians returned, sorted through the remains on the Acropolis, and used parts of the two
burnt temples to reconstruct the north wall of the Acropolis. Other parts of the Older
Parthenon that were deemed still usable (not cracked or calcined) were set aside for future use.
When the Periclean Parthenon was begun in mid-century, many blocks of the Older Parthenon

were included in its fabric. The design and features of the Older Parthenon thus were influential
in subsequent Athenian architecture. Athens also set up a new treasury (Key Buildings, fig.
16.19) at Delphi just after Marathon, as a thank-offering to Apollo (fig. 16.4).
Figure 16.4. Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi, Greece (8th century BCE onwards). Taken from the
top of the Hellenistic theatre, the view includes the Temple of Apollo (rebuilt after an
earthquake in 373 BCE), the Athenian treasury, and on the left in the distance, the gymnasium
complex used by competitors in the Delphic games for Apollo.
A similar set of circumstances happened at Aegina, an island in the Saronic Gulf just opposite
Athens and at times her fierce enemy. Aegina had been awarded the prize of valour by the
combined Greek forces in the naval battle at Salamis, for the city’s courageous role in defeating
the Persians. The most recent archaeological evidence indicates that the Temple of Aphaia (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.20) we see today on Aegina was built immediately after the Persian Wars. Its
pedimental sculpture depicts Trojan Wars, with the participation of Aeginetan heroes, which
might have had metaphorical significance.
For the seat of the Delian League, the defensive alliance against Persia led by Athens, a new
Temple of Apollo (Key Buildings, fig. 16.5) was begun at Delos around 475 BCE. The design
and details of the temple include several features borrowed from Sicily, such as equal
intercolumniations in the peristyle (outer ring of columns) rather than corner contraction (see
Corner Contraction); possibly a western Greek architect, or someone who had worked in Sicily,
designed and supervised the building. For later Athenian architecture, the Older Parthenon and
the Temple of Apollo on Delos were strong, formative influences. Although the two temples

have been largely overlooked in narrative histories of Greek architecture, those two temples
were likely the projects on which young architects such as Iktinos were trained, and either by
example or subsequent first-hand examination, the two early projects had a significant impact.
Figure 16.5. Temple of Apollo, Delos, Greece (c. 475–450 BCE), as drawn by James Stuart and
Nicholas Revett in 1785. The crisp outlines of the white marble blocks of this temple were a
favourite of 18th- and 19th-century architects as they illustrate perfectly the Early Classical style.
Indeed, this temple was highly influential on subsequent Greek buildings such as the
Parthenon.

Corner Contraction
Corners present a problem for architects using the Doric order for rectangular buildings,
because of the adjustment necessary between the triglyph-and-metope frieze, and the spacing
of the columns. The basic scheme for designing an elevation is that there should be a triglyph
(element with four vertical channels, the outer two half the width of the inner two) centred over
the axis of every column, and one triglyph over the space between columns. But at the corners,
if the triglyphs are spaced equally above the columns, there will be an extra space at the end, a
small partial metope. This was unacceptable, because the corners should form a series of
projections against the sky, without a ‘void’ or recess such as a metope. Architects sought to
resolve this inherent contradiction in various ways. In the Archaic Period, sometimes the
metopes adjacent to the corners were simply elongated, so as to push the corner triglyph to
the corner, or the two metopes closest to the corner were graduated. That resulted in metopes
of unequal width, also considered undesirable in a system that was meant to express harmony,
proportion and rhythm.
By the beginning of the fifth century BCE, some architects made the adjustment not in the
frieze course itself, but in the spacing of the columns below it. In Sicily, architects typically
chose to graduate the adjustment by making the two interaxial distances closest to each corner
(on both fronts and flanks) narrower than the other interaxial distances between columns. In
mainland Greece, architects usually chose to focus on just the first intercolumnar space,
between the corner column and the next adjacent column on every side. Eventually the
adjustments became formulaic, discussed by the Roman architect Vitruvius in his hugely
influential De Architectura (Ten Books on Architecture) of around 30–20 BCE: he provides
various specific formulas that include the width of the epistyle (architrave) below the triglyph-
and-metope frieze as a part of the calculation (Book 4, Chapter 3, subsections 1–7). Vitruvius
notes that some Hellenistic architects, such as Pythius and Hermogenes (see Chapter 17),
became disgusted with the Doric order because of this problem. The issue is referred to as
‘corner contraction’ but in fact the entire colonnade is contracted – that is, set closer to the
inner building – on all four sides.
In Sicily, after Carthage was defeated at the Battle of Himera (480 BCE), new temples were
constructed immediately at Syracuse and Himera that are near twins in plan and size: the
Temple of Athena (Key Buildings, fig. 16.21) and the Temple of Nike (Victory) , begun by Gelon
and finished by his brother Hieron. At Gela, another Temple of Athena was constructed, of
which one column stands today. The Temple of Athena at Syracuse was designed with the

Sicilian answer to the problem of corner contraction (see Corner Contraction), so that the two
intercolumnar spaces adjacent to the four corners, on both fronts and sides, were narrower
than the others. The Temple of Nike at Himera also has double corner contraction.
At Olympia, the most senior and prestigious Panhellenic sanctuary, an important new project in
this period, was the Temple of Zeus . The second-century CE Greek traveller Pausanias tells us,
in his Description of Greece (Book 5, Chapter 10, subsection 3), that this imposing temple –
which was designed by Libon of Elis (modern Iliá) – was built from booty from a war between
two local communities, Pisa and Elis/Elea; the Eleans paid for both the temple and the image of
Zeus out of this booty. Some scholars have doubted whether booty from Pisa could have added
up to so much: despite Pausanias’ clear statement, possibly booty from the Battle of Plataea
helped finance this new construction. The Temple of Zeus shows the architect Libon was
interested in proportion and design: he followed what was becoming a formula for the
numbers of columns in the peristyle, of x: 2x +1, hence 6 by 13 columns.
Because of the prestige of the temple at Olympia, the 6-by-13 plan, and even the proportional
formula, were repeated often (see Proportions). Libon’s principal ratio was 2:1, and he seems to
have used a module as a basis of design, perhaps based on a Doric foot of 0.326 metre (slightly
larger than the modern imperial foot, which is 0.304 metre). The interaxial space between
columns is 16 Doric feet, their height 32 Doric feet (10.43 metres), the triglyphs are spaced at 8
Doric feet on their centres, the lions’-head water spouts at 4 Doric feet, pan tiles on the roof at
2 Doric feet. Some modern observers have felt that the result must have been rather static.
Ancient observers, however, more likely would have focused on the spectacular marble
pedimental sculpture, the trophies and dedications around the peristyle, and above all the
chryselephantine (constructed with gold and ivory) statue of Zeus by Phidias. An interesting
aspect that was not intended to be visible to anyone was the design of the woodwork for
supporting the marble roof, and the geisa (cornices; singular: geison) that framed the
woodwork: a thorough study of the geisa shows Libon used a Sicilian system, so he may have
been trained in Sicily.
Proportions
The evolving rules for laying out temples may be read in the temples themselves. The design
was carried out with simple tools, a straightedge and compass, and basic principles of
geometry that had been handed down by generations of builders, perhaps with some impetus
from Egypt and the Near East, explored further by Pythagoras and codified eventually by
Euclid. The Temple of Athena at Assos (Turkish: Behramkale; c. 540 BCE) may have been the
first to have the 6-by-13 plan; it appears again in the Archaic Temple of Poseidon at Sounion (c.
490 BCE: Key Buildings, fig. 16.13). The 6-by-13 plan, favoured in the fifth century BCE,
expresses the ratio of x: 2x +1, which appears in other commensurate parts of both the
elevations and plans of the temples, as well as the ratio of 2:3. The plan of the Parthenon also
followed this proportion, with a peristyle of 8-by-17 columns, and a specific ratio of 4:9 that
appears frequently in various commensurate parts. Some examples in the Parthenon include
the width to the length of the stylobate (30.88: 69.503 metres); the lower diameter of the
column to the axial spacing of the column (1.905: 4.297 metres, on average); and the height of
the columns and entablature (from the stylobate to the geison) to the width of the stylobate
(13.728: 30.88 metres). The column heights of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and the

Parthenon (Key Buildings, fig. 16.8) are identical – 10.433 metres (34 feet) – so it seems Iktinos
might have wished to demonstrate to Libon what could be done with a more complex set of
proportions: perhaps an example of rivalry between architects.
Construction of the Parthenon [(Key Buildings, fig. 16.8) in Athens must have been planned
even in the immediate aftermath of the Persian invasions, but priority was given to the city
walls, to housing, and to building up the harbour at Piraeus , where the all-important navy
needed facilities for drying out ships and other maintenance. The usable blocks left from the
Older Parthenon already had been sorted out during construction of the north wall of the
Acropolis. Actual construction is recorded in preserved financial accounts: magistrates
appointed by the city (epistatai) provided strict oversight of the expenses. Iktinos is named by
ancient authors as the architect, sometimes paired with Kallikrates. Their major challenge was
to build something new on top of the platform for the Older Parthenon and with its surviving
blocks. They accomplished this by extending the platform along the north side, even cutting
into the bedrock slightly to lay foundations for a wider crepidoma (stepped platform). This
allowed an octastyle plan, with 8 by 17 columns (‘octastyle’ signifying eight columns across the
front). Extra corner contraction was used in the intercolumnar spaces adjacent to the corners
(15 centimetres beyond what the formula would call for); this reduced the visual width of the
fronts and maintained a 4:9 ratio on their diagonal.
Figure 16.6. Parthenon, Athenian Acropolis (447–432 BCE). Plan showing the celebrated
arrangement by the architects, Iktinos and Callicrates. Ongoing conservation efforts have
yielded new information about this plan, such as the presence of windows in the cross-wall of
the pronaos, and the interior stairs in the same cross-wall that led up to the attic.
The inner arrangement of the Parthenon is well preserved, and it is assumed that the design
followed that of the narrower Older Parthenon: it has a pronaos (front inner porch) and
opisthodomos (back inner porch), both of which are prostyle (with columns standing forward

rather than set between projecting walls); a cella (inner room) with an interior colonnade; and a
back chamber between the cella and the opisthodomos, which lets out to the opisthodomos.
The city’s treasury was kept in the back chamber. Four columns stood in its interior, probably in
the Ionic order.
The wider cella allowed a new configuration of the interior colonnade: rather than the standard
two rows of two tiers of smaller-scale Doric columns running along the length of the cella,
Iktinos designed the colonnade to return parallel to the back cross-wall, forming a columnar
backdrop for the chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos, created by Phidias. Not only
was the statue enframed, but also the space around it became an ambulatory (processional
passage), large enough to provide ample storage of votive offerings. The interior received extra
daylight from two windows in the cross-wall of the pronaos, and the light was enhanced further
by the later addition of a shallow reflecting pool, which added moisture to the interior (this was
intended to address concern about conservation of the ivory in the image). The design shows a
clear interest in the interior, and in the experience of visitors.
Figure 16.7. Banister Fletcher drawing of optical corrections in Greek architecture. One of the
costly features of the Parthenon (and numerous other Greek temples) was the hand-carving of
stone blocks to deviate slightly from the perfectly horizontal or vertical. Each block had to be
carved for its own position to achieve these curves, including the individual drums of columns.


A remarkable feature of the Parthenon is the extensive use of architectural ‘refinements’ (see
Refinements) to enhance the aesthetic qualities of the temple. The refinements consist of
upward curvature of all horizontal surfaces, from the foundation to the roof; inward inclination
of all columns in the outer peristyle; corner columns that incline diagonally inward and are
slightly larger (by one-fiftieth) in diameter. (If the axes of the columns were projected upward,
they would meet about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) above the temple.) What this meant was that
each block of the building had to be carved for its particular position – they were not
interchangeable. One result is that the modern study of the building can include very precise
reconstructions, even if only on paper. Another notable feature of the Parthenon is the overall
quality of the workmanship. Even small fragments of the temple (found in excavations in the
lower city) are readily identifiable to the trained eye as pieces of the Parthenon.
Figure 16.8. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Parthenon. These drawings show different views
and sections of the Parthenon. The temple is notable for the design of its interior space, and
the large area devoted to Phidias’s gold-and-ivory statue of Athena.
Refinements

‘Refinements’ in Greek architecture is the general term for deviations from the perfectly vertical
or horizontal. Curvature of the stylobate under each side gives a subtle lift to the horizontal
line. In the Parthenon, the maximum curvature at the level of the stylobate is 11.2 centimetres
(approximately 4 inches) on the flanks and 6.5 centimetres (2½ inches) on the fronts; the flank
curvature is readily perceptible. Entasis (a slight swelling of the diameter of the columns)
together with inward inclination and curvature together provide seeming vitality to the mass of
the temple: rather than a static box-like construction, the parts seem to react to supporting the
weight of the roof. Vitruvius thought of refinements as ‘compensation’ for the effect of optics
and sunlight that would ‘eat away’ at the lines and make the temples appear to sag if
refinements were not included (Book 3, Chapter 3, subsections 11–13 and Chapter 4,
subsection 5). Modern experiments have shown this actually does not happen. Other
explanations include the idea that refinements actually enlarge one’s perception – but if a larger
size were desired, presumably the temple could have been larger. A better explanation is that
ancient architects were well aware of the sense of vitality minute variations would provide. The
horizontal curvature of the stylobate was created with simple devices, such as a linked set of
circular, disk-like pieces of wood with graduated heights (what Vitruvius calls scamilli impares or
‘unequal little stools’); this puzzled readers, from the Renaissance through to modern times,
until an unfinished stylobate was excavated that still had a row of circular cuttings to receive
such disks, on a propylon (entrance gate) at Knidos. Measurements at the bottom of each
cutting revealed that, if finished to those levels, the stylobate would be nicely curved.
Figure 16.9. Propylaea, Athenian Acropolis (438–432 BCE). The inner, eastern side of the
Propylaea gateway reveals the widened intercolumniation to accommodate processions and
sacrificial animals. At the foot of the left-most column was a small sanctuary of Athena Hygieia.
The central gateway points outward towards the island of Salamis, where the Persian forces
were defeated at sea.

The Acropolis in Athens was both a sanctuary and a citadel, a part of the defence of Athens.
Just as the new Parthenon rose, phoenix-like, from the Persian devastation of Athens, so too
was it necessary to provide the Acropolis with a proper entrance. The Propylaea (Key Buildings,
fig. 16.28), designed by Mnesikles, was constructed in the 430s, while the sculptural
programme of the Parthenon was being completed. An earlier propylon, whose configuration
was determined largely by still older Mycenaean fortifications, had stood near the west end of
the Acropolis and now had to be replaced. The brilliance of Mnesikles’s new plan is
demonstrated first by his idea to rotate the central axis of the Propylaea to align it with the
Parthenon. The result for the visitor is that as one emerges from the east side of the Propylaea,
there is a perfect 45-degree-angle view of the Parthenon. The great bronze statue of Athena
Promachos was probably underway in the 430s as well, and also faced the emerging visitor.
Apart from security, and a necessary definition of the temenos (sanctuary boundary) of Athena,
the Propylaea provided a monumental terminus for the Panathenaic procession, the signal
event in the celebration of Athena’s birthday festival.
The central hall has five graduated doors, with the widest and tallest in the central passageway,
used for processions and sacrificial animals. Marble benches lined the interior walls. For the
visitor looking west from the central passageway, a clear view of the island Salamis is framed,
and might have reminded those leaving the Acropolis of the days of refuge on the island during
the Persian Wars. The small Ionic Temple of Athena Nike (Key Buildings, fig. 16.10), adjacent on
the south to the Propylaea, was built during the Peloponnesian War and became a focal point
for wartime dedications. A sanctuary for Athena Nike had existed here from at least the early
sixth century BCE, attested by an inscribed altar found during excavations of the bastion,
beneath the level of the current temple.

Figure 16.10. Temple of Athena Nike, Athenian Acropolis (c. 425 BCE). This small Ionic temple
by Kallikrates housed a wingless Nike (Victory) and was built when the Athenians were still
fighting the Spartans, a war they lost. This version of the Ionic order has been greatly admired,
and the temple was positioned to be visible from much of the lower city.
The projects on the Acropolis were completed by the end of the fifth century BCE with the
Erechtheion (Key Buildings, fig. 16.11) on the central north side. Although last in sequence on
the Acropolis, the temple housed the most venerable image of Athena, made of wood. This
was the image that received the peplos (robe) offered to Athena in the Panathenaic Festival.
There was a perpetually burning oil lamp, with a chimney in the shape of a palm tree in the
interior, designed by Callimachus, perhaps the same man who invented the Corinthian order.
Graced with the Porch of the Maidens and its impressive north porch, highly visible from the
lower city, this Ionic temple has become iconic of Classical architecture, with various of its
features emulated in western Europe and the United States in the modern period.
Figure 16.11. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Erechtheion, Athenian Acropolis (c. 421–406
BCE). These drawings analyse how the site’s challenges were met by the unknown architect,
who had to include spaces for several cults and cult-spots, yet still use traditional forms and the
Ionic order. The superb result was a temple with three porches on different levels, and four
types of columnar support.


Renewal in Athens
The mid-century renewal of Athens extended outward, beyond the Acropolis. Athens was
wealthy and could afford extensive rebuilding once the basic infrastructure was completed. The
first temple to be started in the lower city was the Hephaisteion (Key Buildings, fig. 16.25), on a
low hill above the Agora (Key Buildings, fig. 16.2). Honouring Hephaistos and Athena, this
Doric temple was situated near the workshops of craftsmen. Built mostly of Pentelic marble in a
hexastyle plan (in this case 6 by 13 columns – ‘hexastyle’ signifying the six across the front), the
temple almost certainly had no interior columns even though a colonnade is often shown
restored. The bronze images of the gods represented Hephaestus at his forge, and Athena with
the baby Erichthonius, which would have reminded viewers of the legend of Athenian divine
ancestry. In the southeastern area of central Athens, near the Ilissos River, in addition to the
small Ionic, marble Temple on the Ilissos River (c. 435–430; perhaps dedicated to Artemis
Agrotera), a Temple of Apollo Delphinios was constructed near the Archaic law courts. The
temple was built of compact limestone, with marble metopes and a marble roof. Its size and
plan are similar to the Hephaisteion, but it is preserved only in foundations and stray pieces of
its superstructure.
Figure 16.12. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Hephaisteion, Athens (460–420 BCE). Dedicated
to Hephaistos and Athena, this temple sits above the Athenian Agora. Sometimes cited as a
‘standard’ Greek temple, it has several innovative features, such as the continuous (Ionic) frieze
across the pronaos and opisthodomos. Sculpted metopes feature deeds by Heracles and
Theseus. Current research shows there was no interior colonnade.


Even beyond the central city of Athens, building continued apace in the countryside demes
(regional communities) of Attica. At the deme site of Sounion (with local income from silver
mines and shipping) a new marble Temple of Poseidon (Key Buildings, fig. 16.13) was
undertaken. After the Battle of Salamis, this sanctuary received as a dedication one of the
captured enemy ships, probably set up next to the remains of the late Archaic temple that had
been built up to frieze level just after Marathon, then destroyed in the Persian invasion. That
wooden ship could have lasted about forty years in the open air (the promontory at Sounion is
often wind-lashed). The new marble temple was built like a sheath over the foundations and
crepidoma of the earlier temple. Also at Sounion, the Ionic Temple of Athena Sounias was
started around 460 BCE. At Rhamnous, important for its location above a shipping channel
opposite Euboea (modern Evia), a new Doric Temple of Nemesis was begun even while the
Peloponnesian War was underway. Nemesis was believed to have helped the Athenians at
Marathon, and her help was needed once again.
Figure 16.13. Temple of Poseidon, Sounion, Greece (c. 440 BCE). Placed high above the sea,
the temple has been a beacon for sailors and a memorial to ancient Athens’ naval prowess.
Built of marble quarried locally, its columns are unusally slender for the period, with only sixteen
rather than the standard twenty flutes.
In these temples in Athens and Attica, sculptural decoration formed an integral part of the
architecture. The use of narrative on the upper courses of the buildings, and on the praedellae
(decorated bases) of the cult images, expanded the ways that architecture became a long-
lasting historical document of commemoration and aspiration. The sculptural programmes
show careful planning and coordination; in a few instances scholars still puzzle over their
meaning, and opinions differ, but the scenes were certainly not mere ornamentation. They were
an integral part of the architecture and made the temples into splendid offerings to the gods.

In addition to their bright, sharply defined profiles in the landscape, temples were by far its
most colourful features. Coloured paint was added to the entablature and columns, to
mouldings inside and out, to antefixes and lions’ heads on the eaves, and to the sculpture, and
added contrast and legibility (see COLOUR).
Colour
An exciting advance in the study of architectural sculpture is the use of techniques such as
ultraviolet light and infrared photography to study traces of pigment on sculpture and
architectural elements. A pigment known as Egyptian blue shows up under infrared light, and
has revealed traces on the Parthenon’s sculpture (Key Buildings, fig. 16.8), and the ceiling
coffers of the Erechtheion (Key Buildings, fig. 16.11). Other known pigments included red from
cinnabar, blue from azurite, green from malachite, yellow and ochre from arsenic compounds,
gilding, and black from various charcoals. The sculpture on the Parthenon also had gilded
bronze attachments (reins, spears, jewellery) that glittered in sunlight, evident now from small
dowel holes. Diaries of travellers to Greece in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
record their observations of colour, now lost, on its architecture. One account documents that
the carved guilloche (braid pattern) on the Ionic capitals of the north porch of the Erechtheion
were once set with jewel-like coloured glass beads. Apart from dramatic colour applied to
sculpture, the colouring of architectural mouldings followed a set of strict conventions. The
patterns painted on the front surfaces should indicate what the profile moulding looked like: an
ovolo moulding, for example, would be painted with an egg-and-dart design. The mouldings
served as transitional elements that highlighted directional changes in the articulation of
surfaces. The general convention for other architectural elements was to colour blue the
vertical elements (triglyphs, mutules, guttae) and red the horizontal elements (taenia, metopes,
viae).
Temples East and West

In the eastern Mediterranean, construction continued on the great Ionic Temple of Hera IV (Key
Buildings, Chapter 9) at Samos (begun c. 530 BCE), and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
(Greek: Ephesos; Key Buildings, Chapter 9) (c. 560 BCE) still stood despite the Persian Wars.
But the Temple of Apollo at Didyma (Turkish: Didim) had been destroyed by Darius I in 494 BCE
after the Ionian revolt, and the Branchidae, a priestly family who operated the oracle of Apollo,
was exiled to Sogdiana. Not until the later fourth century BCE, under Alexander the Great, was
the oracle revived and the reconstruction of the great temple begun.
Apart from those famous and very large Ionic temples, more modest new construction
continued on some Cycladic islands. On Paros, the Delion is situated with a good view of the
nearby island of Delos. The Temple of Artemis (Apollo’s twin sister) at the Delion was built
around 480 BCE, with distyle-in-antis plan (featuring two columns set between projecting wall
ends), in the Doric order: with its Doric frieze extended all the way around the building, some
5.92 by 9.30 metres (19 by 31 feet). The proportions, workmanship and details of the temple
are very high quality, and it may have served as a local exemplar for the Temple of Apollo at
Delos (Key Buildings, fig. 16.5), started shortly after. The marble cult image of Artemis is
preserved in the local museum, except for her head.
At Miletus, which also had been devastated by Darius I in 494 BCE, a new Temple of Athena
was begun on top of a layer of carbonized destruction debris, partially overlapping an earlier
temple. The Ionic temple is peripteral (with a ring of columns around it), with a hexastyle plan
(here 6 by 10 columns, c. 32 by 55 metres), and is built on a crepidoma of two steps, in

limestone. Despite the conspicuous slow-down of construction in the eastern Mediterranean
(which has been attributed to an economic depression caused by Persian and then Athenian
domination), it should be noted that excavations could reveal otherwise undocumented
building activity; we have only partial knowledge of many sites. Most of the Greek architecture
so prominent to visitors today in western Turkey dates to the resurgence of Greek cities in the
Hellenistic Period.
In contrast, the wealthy cities of Sicily enjoyed a building boom after their triumph over the
Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera. At Syracuse, the Temple of Athena (Key Buildings, fig.
16.21) was constructed, with elaborate chryselephantine doors and a marble roof; the Temple
of Nike (Victory) at Himera, on the coast where the naval battle was fought, is a near twin. Both
temples include an opisthodomus to the cella, a feature generally associate with mainland
Greek design. From these early projects onward, throughout the Greek world we can trace the
beginning of reciprocal exchanges of architectural ideas that accelerated eventually into a
fusion of Classical styles by the end of the fifth century BCE.
Figure 16.14. Temple of Concord, Agrigento (formerly Akragas), Sicily, Italy (c. 450 BCE). One
of the three best-preserved Greek temples anywhere, it has a pair of stone interior stairs
leading up to the attic spaces. It was one of several temples built along a high ridge below the
acropolis of Akragas.

Akragas (modern Agrigento) saw an extensive set of temples constructed, ringing the horizon
on the vale and ridge below the steep acropolis of the city. These temples, such as the Temple
of Concord , were built of local limestone, with imported marble roofs for many of them.
Interior staircases to the attic were a distinctive feature, found elsewhere in Sicilian temples of
the period. Since they required planning from the laying of the foundations, and substantial
resources to complete, it seems possible that the stairs gave access for ritual use of the attic
space, rather than just maintenance of tiles and timber (in mainland Greece, such access was
given typically by trap doors in the ceilings).
Figure 16.15. One of the Atlantes (male figures) from the Temple of Zeus, Akgaras (c. 490–470
BCE). The enormous Temple of Zeus at Akragas was built as a victory monument after the
defeat of the Carthaginian invaders. Engaged Doric columns ringed the outside, perhaps with
the Atlantes between each column, or in an alternative reconstruction, the Atlantes were
placed high up on the interior walls.


By far the most impressive project at Akragas was the Temple of Zeus ; just slightly larger than
Temple G at Selinous (520–420 BCE), the architect of the Temple of Zeus ingeniously used
engaged (embedded in and partly projecting from the wall) Doric columns as a way of making
such scale possible. According to the first-century BCE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus,
writing in his universal history Bibliotheca historica (Book 12, chapter 25, subsection 3),
prisoners from the Battle of Himera were used in the construction of temples and waterworks.
Scholars have noted that the blocks for the temple are moderate in size, which could have
facilitated construction by such crews. The most striking feature of the Temple of Zeus is the
Atlantes, outsize male figures integrated as visual supports for the architrave that either
alternated with the exterior Doric columns, as most reconstructions show, or possibly lined the
interior of the temple.
At Selinous in Sicily, despite collusion with the Carthaginians early in the century, the intense
construction of temples so characteristic of the sixth century BCE continued well into the next.
The Temple (E3) of Hera (Key Buildings, fig. 16.22) has metopes with the flesh of divine and
human females rendered in white marble, dowelled into the limestone setting; the schemes
feature pairs of opposite figures in tension or combat. Temples A and O , on the acropolis,
were built with circular interior staircases, a type anticipating medieval spiral stairs. About 420
BCE, a small Doric propylon was added to the sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros on the west
side of the city. The form of its capitals and its proportions suggest the architect was
acquainted with Athenian architecture.
In southern Italy, the polis Poseidonia (modern Paestum) clearly benefited from the curtailment
of Etruscan expansion after 474 BCE, when Hieron of Syracuse defeated the Etruscan navy at
Cumae. A new Temple of Hera II (Key Buildings, fig. 16.16) was begun adjacent to the Archaic
Temple of Hera I (begun c. 550, with interruptions to c. 520 BCE). This majestic temple,
attributed to Poseidon by eighteenth-century travellers, presents an interesting mix of Italian,
Sicilian and mainland Greek details. The lack of sculptural ornamentation gives the temple an
austere quality.
Figure 16.16. Banister Fletcher drawing comparing Greek temple design. Here the Temple of
Hera II (previously ‘Neptune’) at Paestum (formerly Poseidonia) in Italy (c. 470 BCE) is compared
with the unusual Temple of Zeus at Agrigento (formerly Akragas; c. 490–470 BCE) – and two
earlier examples, Temple of Hera at Olympia and Temple of Hera I at Paestum (previously
‘Basilica’).

Later Fifth-century BCE Styles

Three temples constructed in the last quarter of the fifth century illustrate an incipient fusion of
Classical architectural features and styles, sometimes referred to as the ‘International’ style. The
Temple of Hera at Argos , in the venerable Argive Heraion, was started after the old temple
burned down accidentally in 423 BCE. The details of its mouldings, sculpture, sima (gutters)
and acroteria (roof sculptures) show a clear affinity to Athenian architecture, and its capitals
compare to those of the Temple of the Athenians at Delos and the stoa at Brauron (modern
Vravrona). Yet there are Peloponnesian features as well, such as the ramp leading up to the
temple, and a crepidoma with steps in graduated heights, and sculptured metopes over the
porch façades (as in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia). The Temple of Apollo at Bassai (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.17) similarly combines features recognized as Peloponnesian with Athenian
choices, and its architect Iktinos was an Athenian. Still, the temple borrows specific mouldings
from the Temple of Hera at Argos, such as the cyma reversa on the soffit of the raking geison,
and the construction crew seems to have included Argives. The Temple of Apollo has notable
new features, such as the first use of a Corinthian capital, and a continuous sculpted frieze in
the interior. At Segesta, the Elymian city in the far west of Sicily, the Unfinished Temple (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.29) has proportions (such as 4:9) akin to those established in the Parthenon
and continued in the Temple of the Athenians at Delos. This was a turbulent period with much
of the Greek world at war with each other. That travelling crews and architects worked together
and took whatever commissions were available is surprising only in the persistent urgency of
construction. They brought new ideas along with traditional techniques and expectations, and
in each case created something unique for local devotees.
Figure 16.17. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius, Bassae,
Peloponnese, Greece (c. 429–400 BCE). The plan shows how the architect, Iktinos, added
interior Ionic columns, partly engaged onto spur walls. Above this ran a sculpted Ionic frieze.

This temple anticipates the emphasis on interior spaces in temples that became prominent in
the 4th century BCE and later.

Civic Infrastructure
Although the construction of temples had a clear priority for Greeks in the Classical period,
other forms of architecture were developed as urban areas and civic requirements expanded.
The best-documented place is Athens, where the Agora (Key Buildings, fig. 16.2), under
excavation since 1931, provides archaeological evidence supplemented by extensive testimony
in literature and inscriptions. Greek agoras were the focus of everyday life, and also served as
civic and administrative centres. At Miletus and also Piraeus , the harbour town of Athens, and
Thurii in southern Italy, city plans were laid out freshly by Hippodamus (Greek: Hippodamos) of
Miletus, with designated areas set aside for specific purposes. The purpose was not so much to
impose a ‘grid’ plan of streets, although that was included, but rather to put in place a carefully
conceived, rationalized setting for political, residential and religious activities.
A ubiquitous architectural type in civic settings was the stoa, a colonnaded porch which could
be short or long, deep or shallow, thus adjustable to many circumstances (see STOAS). Its
essential function was to provide shelter from the sun, wind or rain, but from that basic
function, it was developed eventually into sophisticated variations that proliferated in
Hellenistic cities. Among the earliest, simple versions were stoas in the sanctuary of Hera on
Samos, and the stoa as a type seems to have emerged from sanctuaries into agoras in the later
sixth century BCE in mainland Greece, and even earlier in Sicily. Architects typically used the
Doric order for the exterior of stoas, and thereby extended the symbolic value of the Doric as
signalling a ‘sacred’ building into more mundane spheres, when they were built along harbours
and in agoras. In the course of the Classical period, several distinguished examples of stoas
were constructed that provided inspiration for the later expansion of the type.
Figure 16.18. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Doric order. This drawing illustrates variety and
change in the proportions and profiles of the Doric order. Some labels are outdated: the
correct names are B: Temple of Athena, Paestum; C: Temple of Hera II, Paestum; D: Temple of
Aphaia, Aegina; E: Hephaisteion, Athens; F: Parthenon, Athens; G: Temple of Apollo, Delos.

Stoas

The Stoa Basileios (Royal Stoa) in the Athenian Agora (Key Buildings, fig. 16.2) was used by the
chief Archon, the leading magistrate of the city; his title designated him as Archon Basileus,
hence the nickname for the building. This stoa is located in the northwest corner of the Agora,
close to the Altar of the Twelve Gods, and served not only as the Archon’s office (Socrates had
to appear there before his trial of 399 BCE), but also as a place of display for inscribed law
codes. The simple rectangular building, measuring 7.18 by 17.71 metres (24 by 58 feet), had
walls on three sides, with a Doric façade (eight columns in antis), and four interior supports. The
architectural elements date to around 500 BCE, but the foundations include reused material
and it may have been rebuilt after the Persian Wars; two small porches added in the last quarter
of the century. The Stoa Poikile (‘painted’, c. 470–460 BCE) got its nickname from large
paintings in the interior by Polygnotos, Mikon and Panainos; its Doric façade had twenty-three
columns in antis, with eleven Ionic columns in the interior, and it measured some 12.50 by 51
metres (41 by 167 feet). The two ends have been excavated, with work in progress on the
central part. The Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (Zeus of Freedom, c. 430–420 BCE), measuring 16.17
by 44.26 metres (53 by 145 feet), was built just to the south of the Stoa Basileios on the west
side of the Agora. Also in the Doric order, with Ionic columns in the interior, it was designed
with two wings at each end, with pediments and acroteria above them. Two contemporary
stoas in Attica show further originality: at Thorikos, a marble double stoa measuring 14.70 by
31.96 metres (44 by 105 feet) has fourteen columns prostyle on each long side, and a central
doorway in the longitudinal cross-wall. The central intercolumniations on each side were
widened for the passage through the door. At Brauron in the sanctuary of Artemis, a stoa with
re-entrant angles was constructed in front of a series of dining rooms. These examples serve to
illustrate the variety in size and configuration, and the usefulness of the stoa as a type in a
Mediterranean climate.
The most renowned of all Greek theatres, the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens, was built on a
steep slope on the south side of the Acropolis towards its western end. In the period of the
great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the audience sat on wooden seats,
arranged in a rectangular configuration. It did not take on a more monumental, half-circular
stone form until the later fourth century BCE. Elsewhere in Attica, at Thorikos, the first stone
theatre (Key Buildings, fig. 16.26) in Athens was built in an elliptical shape with a rectangular
orchestra, and was used not only for performances but also for political gatherings. The Sicilian
Greeks were avid patrons of the theatre, and a stone theatre was constructed in Syracuse by
cutting the shape of the theatre (seats and orchestra) into the native limestone slope, perhaps
with an elliptical design in the initial phase. Another theatre with rock-cut steps was built at
Argos in the mid-fifth century BCE. A completely circular type of assembly building was
invented as well, such as the circular Ekklesiasterion at Metaponum (modern Metaponto) (for
the ekklesia, or assembly), and the circular bouleuterion at Poseidonia (for the boule or senate),
both dated to the first half of the fifth century BCE. A rectangular bouleuterion was constructed
on the west side of the Athenian Agora around 500 BCE, with a Doric façade along the
exterior. It was replaced in the late fifth century BCE.
Athletic facilities such as gymnasiums and palaistrai (wrestling areas) are well preserved that
date to the fourth century and Hellenistic Periods, but few traces remain in the archaeological
record of their Classical antecedents. The vocabulary for the facilities is well established much
earlier, however, and some athletic terms (such as dromos for running course and hippodrome
for horse or chariot racing) appear already in Homer’s Iliad, composed around 700 BCE. The
gymnasiums that became famous for their philosophical connections in Athens – the Academy,

the Lyceum and Cynosarges – certainly existed in the fifth century BCE, but sporadic
excavations have yielded little trace of their early configurations. Early stadiums (including both
a running course and facilities for spectators) have been excavated at the sanctuary of Poseidon
at Isthmia and the sanctuary of Zeus , Delphi at Olympia that were set up by the early Archaic
Period (see Chapter 10). Both had formal starting lines, and earthen embankments for the
spectators. By the Hellenistic Period, athletic facilities of all sorts were essential in both cities
and sanctuaries.
Public baths (balaneion, plural balaneia) are another Greek architectural form with roots in the
Classical Period, but full development only later in the fourth century BCE and Hellenistic
Period. Public baths have been excavated in Athens (the Dipylon Baths ), the earliest dated to
the first half of the fifth century BCE, and others are known from literary references. The
Dipylon Baths and other early baths include a circular room, in which individual hip-baths made
of terracotta or stone were arranged around the inner walls.
A crucial part of civic infrastructure is the water supply. Household wells were a common source
of water, but public areas and sanctuaries also required water facilities. The tyrants of the
Archaic age sometimes made their mark and won supporters by building fountain-houses, and
fountain-houses with Doric façades appear in vase-painting. An extraordinary tunnel (Key
Buildings, Chapter 9) serving as an aqueduct was constructed by Eupalinos at Samos in the
Archaic Period. In Athens in the fifth century BCE, Kimon was credited for laying an aqueduct
that brought water to the Academy outside the city wall, and planting trees there. Stretches of
terracotta pipes for this aqueduct have been found in excavation. Two fountain-houses
anchored an extensive length of the Panathenaic Way, one by the Dipylon Gate in the
Kerameikos, and the other in the southeast corner of the Agora. Typically, fountain-houses took
on temple-like features, with Doric columnar façades, and lion’s-head spouts from which the
water gushed. Since gathering water was typically a woman’s job, going out to get water from
a centrally located fountain-house was one of the ways women went into the public eye.
At Akragas in Sicily, an extensive hydraulic project is credited to Phaiax of Akragas, who used
prisoners’ labour to construct an extensive network of underground conduits (some 14.5
kilometres (9 miles) have been documented) for the city. Some of them emptied into and
drained a large swimming pool he built, called the Kolymbethra , some 1,250 metres (4,100
feet) in perimeter, and 9 metres (30 feet) in depth. Diodorus Siculus (Book 11, chapter 25 and
Book 13, chapter 82) states it was later turned into a well-stocked fish pond, for food and
pleasure, with swans and other birds; by Diodorus Siculus’ time (the first century BCE) it was
already silted up and turned into an orchard, as it is today.
Key Buildings
Older Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens (490–485 BCE)

As the predecessor of the Periclean Parthenon , the Older Parthenon was begun just after the
Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE as a thank-offering to Athena for the victory. The temple was
constructed on the south side of the Acropolis, in a challenging location where the natural
bedrock drops in a steep slope at a point about midway along the length of the footprint of the
building. The architect may have had to clear away previous small buildings (referred to in an
earlier inscription as oikemata, small buildings), but the main work consisted of building up a
deep platform, 32 by 77 metres (105 by 253 feet), to enclose the natural ridge and extend the

usable space outward to the south, and a terrace wall to hold in fill against the south
foundations. At least 8,000 blocks of limestone quarried at Piraeus were used for the platform,
twenty-five courses deep on the south side. The superstructure consisted of a lowest step of
Kara limestone, a middle step, stylobate and entire elevation of Pentelic marble (the first major
use of Pentelic, quarried some 17 kilometres (11 miles) from the Acropolis). The plan of this first
marble Doric temple was hexastyle, with 6 by 16 columns, stylobate estimated at 23.51 by
66.89 metres (77 by 219 feet), and a tetrastyle (four-columned) amphiprostyle (prostyle on both
sides) cella with both a pronaos and opisthodomos, and additional chamber behind the cella.
The drums had entasis, and were designed to be one drum shorter than the present Parthenon,
with capitals slightly larger (20 centimetres, or 8 inches). More than 250 blocks may be assigned
to the temple, including some built into the north wall of the Acropolis, plus many more
credibly assigned on the basis of dimensions, reused in the current Parthenon. The temple was
burned by the Persians while it was unfinished and still under scaffolding. It was innovative for
its use of Ionic mouldings and possibly intended Ionic columns in the back chamber with a
Doric exterior (perhaps Cycladic influence) and for its complex interior plan. Because the Older
Parthenon is not perfectly centred on the limestone platform, some scholars posit one or more
earlier predecessors on the same site.
Treasury of the Athenians, Delphi (490–485 BCE)

The Treasury of the Athenians is a small (stylobate 6.57 by 9.57 metres, or 31 by 22 feet)
rectangular Doric building, of a distyle-in-antis arrangement, built of Parian marble on
limestone foundations. The Doric frieze has six metopes on the short sides and nine on each
long side, all sculpted, representing the heroic deeds of Theseus (east and south) and Herakles
(west and north); the pedimental sculpture is fragmentary, but seems to have included Athena,
Herakles and Theseus. This was the first Doric treasury built of marble. The regulae (pendant
rectangles in the architrave) have only five guttae (rather than the usual six), and the triglyphs
are not perfectly aligned over the columns. A limestone triangular terrace and enclosing wall
extend in front of the treasury, carved with many inscriptions including a hymn to Apollo with
musical notations. The south wall of the treasury is covered with more than 150 inscriptions
commemorating Athenian sacred embassies to Delphi. At the foot of the south wall, a large
base, inscribed as a dedication to Apollo from Marathon, once supported statues set up after
Marathon. The date of the building has been disputed; some scholars think its style (especially
certain metopes) seems too early for the 480s BCE. A second Doric marble treasury in the
Sanctuary of Athena at Delphi (Marmaria) is a near twin, and is dated to the 470s BCE,
dedicator unknown. The Stoa of the Athenians in the Ionic order was set up nearby around 460
BCE, using the terrace wall of the Temple of Apollo as its back wall.
Figure 16.19. Athenian Treasury, Delphi (c. 490 BCE). Dedicated to Apollo by Athens, the
building was itself a dedication and contained many other offerings. The sculpted metopes in
the Doric frieze depict the deeds of Herakles and Theseus. Its current version was rebuilt from
mostly original blocks in the early 20th century.

Piraeus Harbour, Piraeus, Athens (begun c. 490 BCE)

Themistocles is credited by several ancient authors as the Athenian who recognized the value
of Piraeus to Athens as a harbour, and pushed to have it built, probably soon after the Battle of
Marathon. The old Athenian harbour at Phaleron (modern Palaio Faliro), where ships were
simply drawn up on land to dry, was no longer adequate for the growing Athenian navy.
Attention was brought to the area when massive quarry operations began for the substructure
of the Older Parthenon’s ; Piraeus limestone continued to be quarried for centuries.
Hippodamus of Miletus is said to have supervised some of the planning of the areas of Piraeus,
with attention to how spaces were allocated for specific purposes. Stone inscribed boundary
markers (now in the Piraeus Museum) support this interpretation. A grid plan was laid out, with
houses in city blocks and numerous stoas along the harbour; the plan is known in outline from
excavations in the modern city. Piraeus grew to a large size, with an agora, temples, stoas and
shipsheds, but was administered by central Athens. Piraeus attracted foreign residents, and
temples or shrines to new gods were constructed there, such as for Bendis (from Thrace,
introduced around 430 BCE), Asklepios (from Epidaurus (Greek: Epidauros), around 420 BCE)
and later Egyptian Ammon and Isis (introduced around 350 BCE).
Temple of Aphaia (II), Aegina (c. 480–475 BCE)

The Temple of Aphaia, a local goddess, sits on a high hill in the northeast corner of Aegina, a
triangular island in the Saronic Gulf. Aegina was a powerful polis in the Archaic and early
Classical Periods until the island was conquered by Athens in the mid-fifth century. Aeginetans
fought well in the Battle of Salamis and were awarded the prize of valour by the combined
Greek forces. The temple was almost certainly constructed immediately after, although some
twentieth-century scholars put it at 500 BCE on stylistic grounds; excavated potsherds from the
foundations support the later date. The new temple replaced an Archaic Doric limestone
temple that was destroyed and burned, perhaps by the Persians. The Doric temple has a
hexastyle plan (6 by 12 columns, stylobate 13.77 by 28.82 metres or 95 by 45 feet), a double
interior colonnade of superimposed Doric columns, and both a pronaos and an opisthodomos.
It was built of Aeginetan limestone, and probably had marble metopes, now missing: preserved
triglyphs show signs of hacking at the edges, suggesting the adjacent metopes were robbed
out. Notable interior features include small slot windows in the upper walls, and a gallery
(added later) to the interior colonnade. The roof was tiled in terracotta with decorated
antefixes and a marble sima. The Parian marble sculpture from the two pediments is very well
preserved (even traces of colour), featuring scenes of two Trojan Wars (the Homeric war and an
earlier war led by Herakles; Aeginetan heroes were involved in both). The temple’s sculpture
was found by the British architect C.R. Cockerell and friends in 1811.
Figure 16.20. Banister Fletcher drawing of the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, Greece (c. 480 BCE).
These drawings portray the features of this well-preserved Doric temple. Its interior colonnade
is formed by two rows of superimposed, small-scale Doric columns. Both pediments were filled
with sculpture representing the two wars at Troy.

Temple of Athena, Syracuse, Sicily (c. 480–470 BCE)

The Doric Temple of Athens was constructed immediately after the Greek victory at Himera
over the Carthaginians, when Gelon was tyrant. The limestone temple has a hexastyle plan (6
by 14 columns, stylobate 22.20 by 55.45 metres or 182 by 73 feet), with a deep pronaos, an
opisthodomos, and a pair of stone interior stairs enclosed in rectangular stairwells on both
inner sides of the door. A Temple of Nike (Victory) was built at Himera with a closely similar
plan. The temple at Syracuse had marble acroteria, a marble roof (probably Parian), and a
marble sima with lions’-head water spouts. It originally had chryselephantine doors, inset with
gold nails and perhaps with figured scenes. The Temple of Athena is well preserved within the
fabric of the church of Santa Maria delle Colonne. Converted in the seventh century, it became
a mosque under Arab rule, and was changed back into a church under the Normans in 1093.
Now the Duomo (cathedral), its façade was started around 1725 by Andrea Palma after it was
damaged in the earthquake of 1693.
Figure 16.21. Temple of Athena, Syracuse, Sicily, Italy (c. 480 BCE). Now the Syracuse Duomo
(cathedral), the older temple was converted into a church by filling in its outer peristyle, and, on
the inside, cutting arches into its interior walls. The outer Doric frieze contrasts with the
Baroque pilasters that the architect Andrea Palma added to the façade around 1725.
Temple of Zeus, Agrigento (formerly Akragas), Sicily (c. 490–

470 BCE)

This unusual Doric temple is associated with Theron, tyrant of Akragas, and its extraordinary
design may reflect interest in Pythagorean numbers, with an outer perimeter intended to be
1,000 Doric feet, thus 10 by 10 by 10. The plan (7 by 14 columns) is pseudo-dipteral (with a
wide peristyle, enough space for two sets of columns) and hypaethral (with an inner courtyard
open to the sky). Its engaged columns stand around an outer wall set on a platform of five
steps, with at least two entrances to the inner courtyard at the east end, in the first and sixth
intercolumniations. The temple is colossal in scale, with a stylobate of some 52.90 by 110.03
metres (174 by 361 feet); it is difficult to measure because much of the superstructure was
dismantled and reused to build a breakwater in the harbour in the eighteenth century. The walls
and engaged columns (minimum estimated height, 19.20 metres or 63 feet), are built of
limestone blocks of moderate size, easy to quarry and manoeuvre. Ionic mouldings are used
beneath the engaged columns and along the outer walls. In addition to its gigantic scale, Ionic
features and odd number of columns on the short façades, the architect added male figures
(Atlantes), some youthful and unbearded and others bearded, measuring around 7.5 metres (25
feet) high, with their arms above their heads in a supportive position. Most scholars assume
they were on the outside of the temple, in between the columns and supporting the architrave.
An alternate view is that they stood in the interior, and windows were set in the interstices
between the outer engaged columns. Recent ideas suggested for their symbolism include
Carthaginian prisoners or the Titans. The interior was divided into three aisles by two rows of
large square pillars. Diodorus Siculus visited the temple and describes it (Book 13, chapter 82,
subsection 104): he says it was constructed with the manpower of prisoners from the Battle of
Himera; a man could stand in one flute of the outer columns, and he notes pedimental
sculpture that represented a Gigantomachy and the Fall of Troy, of which a few uncertain
fragments remain. It was roofed but not fully finished, and was the largest Greek temple ever
built. An enormous stepped altar (the full width of the temple) was built and carefully aligned
and planned geometrically with the temple; its foundations are preserved.
Temples A (Herakles), C (Demeter and Kore), D (Hera), E

(Athena), F (Concord), G (Hephaistus), I (Dioscuri), L, Agrigento
(formerly Akragas), Sicily (c. 500–430 BCE)
The wealth of Akragas in the fifth century BCE is demonstrated by an extensive building
programme of temples positioned on a southern ridge and around the perimeters of the city
that still give an impressive panoramic effect. Apart from the Temple of Zeus , the attributions
to deities are uncertain. The earliest is the hexastyle Temple (A) of Herakles (c. 500 BCE, 6 by
15 columns, 25.28 by 67.04 metres or 83 by 220 feet), with an interior building aligned with the
third column of each façade, which provides an extra-deep front and back pteron (area within
the peristyle or colonnade) for ceremonies; it is the first temple with stone interior stairs leading
to the attic. The non-peripteral, distyle-in-antis Temple (C) attributed to Demeter and Kore (c.
480–470 BCE, 13.30 by 30.20 metres or 44 by 99 feet) sits on a high ridge on the eastern side
of the city, above a rupestral sanctuary (cut into bedrock, with springs) which might have been
connected ritually. The Norman church of San Biagio was built over the foundations of the
temple. The best preserved of all the temples is the hexastyle Temple (F) of Concord (c. 450
BCE, 6 by 13 columns, 16.91 by 39.44 metres or 55 by 129 feet) as its superstructure was
turned into a church, with arches cut through the cella walls; otherwise it is missing only its roof
and ceiling. Built on a crepidoma with four steps, the temple has a pronaos, cella and
opisthodomos, and a pair of stone stairwells for stairs leading to the attic. The other peripteral

temples share the hexastyle, 6-by-13 plan, with stone interior staircases, but each has
distinctive features and proportions. There is an emphasis on the front (typically east) side, with
additional stairs for the crepidoma; the Temple (D) of Hera (c. 460 BCE) has a monumental
stepped altar the width of the temple and a short distance from its east end. In the upper city,
Santa Maria dei Greci is built on top of the Temple (E) of Athena . Local limestone was used for
all of the temples. After the Battle of Himera (480 BCE), the construction of waterworks by
Phaiax of Akragas could have provided some of the building material for the programme of
temples. An additional small Doric temple, amphi-distyle-in-antis plan, measuring (10.70 by
21.70 metres (35 by 71 feet), with engaged columns on its back façade, sits on a lower plain
just to the south of the temple ridge (called the Temple of Asklepios ); despite its smaller size it,
too, has a pair of stone interior stairs. It has been dated variously, to the late fifth century or
even the Hellenistic Period.
Temple of Hera (E3), Selinous, Sicily (c. 470 BCE)

Third in a series on this site, the Doric Temple of Hera was built of local limestone in a hexastyle
plan (6 by 15 columns, stylobate 25.32 by 67.73 metres or 83 by 222 feet), with a pronaos,
opisthodomos and adyton (chamber behind the cella). Foundations indicate it had a pair of
stone stairwells behind the cross-wall of the pronaos, leading to the attic. Each interior space
from the outer peristyle steps up in the interior. The architect invented tetraglyphs (an
expanded form of the triglyph) for the return of the Doric frieze over the corners of the inner
building. The temple had acrolithic sculpted metopes, now in the Palermo museum, featuring
pairs of male and female figures: Zeus and Hera, Artemis and Aktaion, Heracles and an
Amazon, Athena and Enkelados, Apollo and Daphne and other fragmentary scenes. The
temple was one of three large Doric peristylar temples built parallel on the east hill outside the
city, along with the earlier Temples F (c. 520 BCE) and G (520–420 BCE).
Figure 16.22. Temple of Hera (E), Selinous, Italy (c. 470 BCE). The Temple of Hera had a pair of
interior stone staircases leading to its attic spaces, and its plan also includes an adyton as well
as an opisthodomos. A series of sculpted metopes were placed above the two ends of the
interior building.

Temple of Apollo, Delos (c. 475–450 BCE)

The Doric Temple of Apollo was begun at Delos alongside earlier temples and treasuries in the
sanctuary, facing west and the horned altar of Apollo. The foundations are made of shale-like
local stone, with a superstructure of white Parian marble. The plan is hexastyle (6 by 13
columns, stylobate 13.55 by 29.78 metres or 44 by 98 feet), the only peripteral temple on
Delos. The temple has features which link it to stylistic choices in the Greek west (southern Italy
and Sicily), such as evenly spaced intercolumniations, and the free arrangement of the inner
building, not aligned with the peristyle. There was an interior Doric frieze around the pronaos,
and the frieze may have continued around the outside of the cella, anticipating later designs in
Athens. The temple was completed up to the height of the frieze by about 450 BCE, probably
with a temporary roof. The geison and formal roof were completed in the early third century
BCE; inscribed inventories detail offerings kept in various parts of the temple, labelled by
location. An added marble decorative course between the frieze and the geison, constructed in
the second phase, must have been planned from the beginning or initially made of wood; it
was imitated in the adjacent Temple of the Athenians . The columns were left unfluted, and the
stylobate pavement was not smoothed. The initial construction coincides with the early years of
the Delian League, and the temple may have been intended as the repository for the league’s
treasury as Apollo’s premier temple. The crepidoma and many blocks are preserved.
Figure 16.23. Doric capital, Temple of Apollo, Delos (c. 475–450 BCE). Despite heavy
weathering from its location on the windy island of Delos, this capital still displays superb
craftsmanship and carving in the profile of the echinos and the annulets above the start of the
flutes.

Temple of Hera II, Paestum (formerly Poseidonia), Italy (c. 470

BCE)
The hexastyle Temple of Hera II (6 by 14 columns, stylobate 24.30 by 59.90 metres or 80 by 197
feet), formerly attributed to Poseidon, sits on the coastal plain south of the Sele River, within
the ancient city walls of Poseidonia. Its roof and inner walls are mostly missing, but the entire
peristyle, with entablature, and double interior colonnade still stand. The temple is constructed
of local travertine limestone, then stuccoed and painted; the sima may have been of imported
Cycladic marble. The inner plan of the temple includes a pronaos, cella, opisthodomos and a
symmetrical pair of stairwells for interior stairs located behind the pronaos cross-wall. The
fluting of the columns varies, with 24 for the outer columns, 20 for the lower tier of inner
columns, and 16 for the upper tier. The design and details of the temple present an intriguing
mix of features found both earlier and later, drawn from different regions: the double inner
colonnade is unusual in Italy; the stairwells are characteristic of Sicilian fifth-century temples,
and there are hints of mainland Greek influence such as curvature in the stylobate and the
inward inclination of the outer columns, and single corner contraction on the fronts (but in two
intercolumniations on the flanks). No trace of architectural sculpture remains. Votive offerings
found in nearby pits confirm the attribution to Hera. This temple was eagerly studied and often
illustrated in the eighteenth century, notably by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Figure 16.24. Temple of Hera II at Paestum, drawn by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in 1778. This
well-preserved Greek temple shows a mix of influences, and it has a double interior colonnade,
rare in Italy during this period. It was greatly admired and often studied and illustrated in the
18th century, as magnificently represented in this Piranesi etching.

Temple of Zeus, Olympia (c. 470–457 BCE)

Attributed to the architect Libon of Elis, the hexastyle Doric temple stands in a prominent
location within the sanctuary of Zeus. The temple (6 by 13 columns, stylobate 27.66 by 64.12
metres or 91 by 210 feet) is built of fossiliferous limestone, then stuccoed to imitate marble and
painted, with a Parian marble roof and Parian pedimental sculpture (with later repairs in
Pentelic marble). The woodwork of the roof and design of the geison course show affinities
with the techniques and designs used in Sicilian Greek temples. The pediment on the east
represented the chariot race between Pelops and Oinomaos with Zeus in the centre; on the
west, Apollo amid a Centauromachy (battle between Lapiths and Centaurs). Two gold tripods
crowned the east outer corners, and bronze gilded Nikai (winged Victories) were set up on the
central peaks. A monumental stone ramp leads up to the level of the stylobate. The interior
plan includes a pronaos, cella and opisthodomos, and a double interior colonnade. Above the
entrances to the pronaos and opisthodomos was a Doric frieze with sculpted metopes
representing the deeds of Herakles, six on each side. A later wooden stair was added to a
wooden gallery constructed between the side walls and the colonnade. What made the interior
stunning to visitors was the chryselephantine statue by the sculptor Pheidias: an enthroned
Zeus, some 13 metres (43 feet) tall, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
on Hellenistic wonder lists. There was a shallow reflecting pool in front of the statue, with a
floor of dark grey Eleusinian limestone, rimmed with white marble.
Hephaisteion, Athens (460–420 BCE)

The Hephaisteion, or Temple of Hephaistos and Athena, sits on the Kolonos hill above the
Agora (Key Buildings, fig. 16.2), and is the best-preserved Greek temple anywhere. It was
turned into a church of St George in the seventh century CE. The Pentelic marble temple is
hexastyle (6 by 13 columns, stylobate 13.71 by 31.78 metres or 45 by 104 feet), built on a
crepidoma of three steps, with the lowest of limestone; some Parian marble was used in the
sculptured friezes across the pronaos and opisthodomos, and in upper parts of the building and
its roof. The temple has sculptured metopes along the east front, featuring deeds of Herakles,
and four sculptured metopes on each flank closest to the east front, with deeds of Theseus. The
pronaos is aligned with the third column of the flanks, and the continuous (Ionic) frieze above
the pronaos is carried across the peristyle to join the backers of the outer Doric frieze; Ionic
mouldings crown the interior epistyles. The subject of the east interior frieze has been debated;
it includes seated gods and a battle scene. The west interior frieze depicts a Centauromachy.
Fragments of marble pedimental sculpture exist, and marble acroteria. Although the cella is
usually restored with a colonnade, this is incorrect; the temple almost certainly had no interior
colonnade. The ceiling system is well preserved, and consists of marble frames with individually
worked coffer lids, keyed together with inscribed letters and symbols. Preserved inscribed
financial accounts dated to 421–415 BCE give the details about a pair of bronze statues of
Hephaistos and Athena, associated with this temple and attributed to the sculptor Alkamenes.
Figure 16.25. Hephaisteion in situ in the present-day Athenian Agora. The best preserved of all
Greek temples, the Hephaisteion (Temple of Hephaistos and Athena) honoured the deities as
ancestors of the Athenians. The temple was turned into a church, probably in the 7th century
CE, and a medieval vault covers the interior structure.
Temple of Athena Sounias, Sounion, Attica (c. 460 BCE)

On a hill not far inland from the sanctuary of Poseidon [(Key Buildings, fig. 16.13) is the
sanctuary of Athena Sounias, where an unusual Ionic temple was constructed around 460 BCE,
in Agrilezza marble, now preserved at the level of the foundations. Its unusual plan, with
columns (10 by 12) only on two adjacent sides, is noted by Vitruvius (Book 4, Chapter 8,
subsection 4). It has a single rectangular cella, with four interior columns, and colonnades on
the east and south fronts, on a stylobate measuring 14.62 metres (48 feet) about 19.18 metres
(63 feet). Today only foundations and a few blocks remain on the site, because in the first
century CE much of its superstructure was taken apart, moved to the Athenian Agora (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.2), and rebuilt as a new temple, probably for an imperial cult. Pieces from
Sounion with Roman-era assembly marks have been found in central Athens.
Theatre, Thorikos, Attica (mid-fifth century BCE)

In the deme site of Thorikos, a mining district, a rectangular theatral area was laid out around
500 BCE, contemporary with the earliest phase of the Theatre of Dionysos in central Athens,
which was likely also rectangular in shape. Some time between around 480 BCE and around
425 BCE, the theatre was expanded and furnished with stone seats in the cavea (seating area),
with an overall elliptical shape, thus becoming the first stone theatre in Attica (wooden seats
were used in the contemporary Theatre of Dionysos on the south slope of the Acropolis, and in
other theatres in deme sites of Athens). The theatre at Thorikos is built into the slope of the
Velatouri hill, with an approximately rectangular orchestra, some 14 by 30 metres (46 by 98
feet). During the fifth century BCE, these theatres were used for performances of drama and
comedy, staged as a part of festivals of Dionysos, but also were used for political gatherings
and debates: thus they had multiple purposes and were bound up with both religious festivals
and local political life.
Figure 16.26. Theatre, Thorikos, Greece (c. 450 BCE). This theatre was built in Attika outside
central Athens in the wealthy area of Thorikos, where there were many silver mines. It is one of
the earliest stone theatres in Greece, and is notable for its rectangular (rather than circular)
orchestra.

Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens (447–432 BCE)

Built on the platform originally constructed for the Older Parthenon , the Periclean Parthenon –
normally known today simply as the Parthenon – has an octastyle plan (8 by 17 columns,
stylobate 30.88 by 69.50 metres or 101 by 228 feet), with a pronaos, cella, back chamber and
opisthodomos, the pronaos and opisthodomos being hexastyle prostyle. Each column has a
maximum diameter of 1.91 metres (6 feet 3 inches) and a height of 10.43 metres (just over 34
feet). Built of Pentelic marble, the fabric includes many blocks originally quarried for the Older
Parthenon, including steps and the six prostyle columns of the opisthodomos. The cella has an
interior colonnade of two tiers of superimposed Doric columns, with a return parallel to the
back wall of the cella; they have slender proportions and sixteen flutes. The back chamber
(called the ‘Parthenon’ in inscriptions) had four Ionic columns that rose to the ceiling (the
Corinthian order has also been suggested). Two windows in the pronaos cross-wall allowed
light into the spacious interior. An older shrine was maintained in the north pteron. Besides the
chryselephantine statue of the Athena Parthenos made by Pheidias, the temple was lavishly
decorated with architectural sculpture in a carefully arranged, hierarchical programme. The
pediments featured the Birth of Athena (east) and the Contest between Athena and Poseidon
(west); the metopes depicted a Gigantomachy (east), the Fall of Troy (north), an
Amazonomachy (west) and a Centauromachy (south); the interior frieze, which wraps around
the upper wall of the interior building, shows the Athenians in procession for the Panathenaic
Festival (west, north, south), a gathering of gods observing the festival, and the presentation of
a new peplos (woven robe) to Athena (east). The two central peaks of the temple had floral

acroteria, while the four corners likely had winged Nikai (Victories). Besides the sculpture, the
temple is remarkable for its refinements, deviations from the perfectly vertical or rectangular
(see REFINEMENTS). In the fourth century BCE and later, bronze shields were hung on the
architrave, some sent by Alexander the Great (circular weathered patterns and the dowel holes
are still visible), and around 60 CE a large inscription honouring the Roman emperor Nero was
added in dowelled bronze letters across the east front. The temple was turned into a Christian
church in the seventh century CE, and into a mosque after the capture of the city in 1458. The
temple was still fairly intact until it was taken briefly by the Venetians in 1687; their cannon blew
up the gunpowder stored within it. A small mosque was rebuilt inside, dismantled after the
Greek War of Independence in the 1830s. Further damage was caused by Lord Elgin when his
agents removed sculpture and some architectural blocks around 1800. There is now an
extensive programme of conservation on the site of the Parthenon. The items removed by Elgin
are exhibited in the British Museum in London. In Athens the New Acropolis Museum (see
Chapter 93) ) was completed in plain sight of the Parthenon in 2009, and sits ready to take the
marbles back.
Figure 16.27. Elevation of the Parthenon. As the temple’s architects, Iktinos and Kallikrates
chose a plan with eight columns on the shorter façades, but reduced the visual width with extra
corner contraction. This was accomplished through an overall ratio of 4:9, used throughout the
building.

Temple of Poseidon, Sounion, Attica (c. 440 BCE)

The marble temple at Sounion, made famous by Lord Byron through his poetry, is placed on a
high promontory that projects out into the sea at the southern tip of the Attic peninsula, above
an important ancient shipping lane between the Aegean and the Saronic Gulf. The hexastyle
Doric temple (6 by 13 columns, stylobate 13.47 by 31.12 metres or 44 by 102 feet) replaced an
earlier limestone temple of similar plan, burnt by the Persians. The inner building consists of a
pronaos, cella and opisthodomos, with no interior colonnade. Locally quarried white Agrilezza
marble was used for the superstructure, while the interior sculptured frieze is made of Parian
marble. The sculptured frieze extended across the pronaos and around the front pteron, thus
creating a unified effect; although much worn, the themes appear to be a Gigantomachy, a
Centauromachy and the deeds of Theseus. On the west end, the frieze extended only the
width of the cella. The columns have unusually slender proportions, and only 16 flutes (rather
than the standard 20 in the Doric order of this period). The temple also had a marble sima with
pierced lotus and palmette designs, punctuated with lion’s head water spouts, analogous to
those used in terracotta in southern Italic Greek temples. The sanctuary is surrounded by a
fortification wall, and a small propylon in the Doric order was added around 420 BCE.
Propylaea, Acropolis, Athens (438–432 BCE)

Attributed to the architect Mnesikles, the Propylaea (plural of propylon, entrance gates,
because it had five doors in three sizes) was built of Pentelic marble among the remains of
earlier entrances on the western, most accessible end of the Acropolis. The steep slope
required a building that spanned a considerable rise in elevation. This problem was solved by
constructing the central hall of the complex in two levels, with stairs leading up into it on the
west side and a second interior flight of stairs leading to the five doors; the two levels required
two pitched roofs, with the eastern part rising above the western. The Doric central hall is
rectangular, 21.14 by 23.84 metres (69 by 78 feet), hexastyle prostyle, with two rows of interior
Ionic columns that rise to the ceiling. It has a wider intercolumniation in the centre to allow the
passage of processions and sacrificial animals. The northwest and southwest wings, both tristyle
in antis, are also in the Doric order, but at a smaller scale, and from the viewpoint of a visitor
appear symmetrical. The wings also seem to reach out and embrace the ascending visitor. The
northwest wing consists of a chamber with an offset door, and two windows; in the Roman era
it was used as a picture gallery (Pinakotheke), and possibly was used for ritual dining earlier.
The southwest wing provides a passageway to the adjacent sanctuary of Athena Nike (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.10). Two other rooms were planned but not built on the north and south inner,
eastern side. Stringcourses of dark grey Eleusinian limestone help bind together visually the
various levels and scales on the west front, and the same stone punctuates the interior. In many
of its details and proportions the Propylaea is modelled on the Parthenon. It also contained
several small shrines to Hekate, Hermes Propylaios, the Graces and Athena Hygieia. Some
protective surfaces and lifting bosses were left in place (unfinished), but the ceiling coffers,
mouldings and other details were painted.
Figure 16.28. Banister Fletcher drawings of the Propylaia. These drawings show the steep and
varied ground levels that challenged Mnesikles, whose brilliant design provided a visual
integration of the central hall and two wings, in different scales in the Doric order, along with an
Ionic interior.


Temple of Nemesis, Rhamnous, Attica (430–420 BCE)

The Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous sits on an artificial terrace on a high hill above the deme
site of Rhamnous, on the coast of Attica opposite Euboea and quite near Marathon. A sacred
way leads from the sanctuary down to the fortified town. The temple contained a marble cult
statue of Nemesis, some 4.95 metres (16 feet) in height, made by Agorakritos of Paros of
Parian marble; the goddess stands on a base also of marble, decorated with a relief showing
the presentation of Helen by Leda to Nemesis. Parts of the statue and much of the base are
preserved. The hexastyle temple (6 by 12 columns, stylobate 10.02 by 21.46 metres or 33 by 70
feet) is made of local white marble from Agia Marina, and a dark grey local limestone for the
lowest step. The crepidoma and several lower drums are in place. The temple had no
architectural sculpture other than the acroteria; the columns were intended to have twenty
flutes but were left unfinished, and there are unsmoothed panels left on the stylobate.
Foundations of a large altar exist just east of the temple. Immediately adjacent to the Temple of
Nemesis on the north is a small rectangular building, dating to the early fifth century BCE,
which served as either a Temple of Themis or a treasury for the sanctuary. It has curved
polygonal outer walls with an inner facing of irregularly stacked stones. Inside were found a
statue of Themis, signed by Chairestratos (c. 300 BCE), and two inscribed marble thrones,
dedicated to Nemesis and Themis.
Unfinished Temple, Segesta, Sicily (c. 430–420 BCE)

The ‘Unfinished’ Temple at Segesta stands outside the ancient city walls, on a hill opposite the
higher prominence with the city site and fortification walls. Segesta was an Elymian city, said to
be settled by refugees from the Trojan War, as well as other local people. By the fifth century
BCE, there were intermarriages with the adjacent Greek polis Selinous, but the two cities at
times warred against each other (as noted by Thucydides: Book 6, chapter 6, subsection 2). The
Unfinished Temple, built of local limestone, has a Doric hexastyle plan (6 by 14 columns,
stylobate 26.25 by 61.15 metres or 86 by 201 feet), with a pronaos, cella, opisthodomos and an
interior pair of stone staircases; construction of the inner building was begun but not
completed, and the columns of the intact peristyle are not fluted. The design of the temple
combines Sicilian features (such as the interior stairs, consequent 6-by-14 plan, and double
angle contraction) with ratios (2:3, 4:9) that suggest knowledge of Athenian architecture, and
curvature in the stylobate. The corner viae of the geisa are carved with palmettes in high relief.
The temple may have been left unfinished because of the Carthaginian invasion of 409 BCE.
This temple was the last large peripteral Greek temple built in Sicily. An earlier Doric peripteral
temple (c. 470 BCE), measuring approximately 28 by 56 metres (92 by 184 feet) lies on a
terrace to the south of the ancient city, in Contrada Mango. It has not yet been fully excavated
or studied.
Figure 16.29. Unfinished Temple, Segesta, Sicily, Italy (c. 430–420 BCE). Today only the
peristyle still stands of this handsome Doric temple, built in Elymian Segesta. This temple and
another earlier temple (at Contrada Mango in Segesta) show the architectural and cultural
influence of the Greek cities in Sicily on their non-Greek neighbours on the island.

Temple of Athena Nike, Acropolis, Athens (c. 425 BCE)

This graceful, small Ionic temple has been rebuilt three times over the past two centuries (it had
been taken apart under Ottoman rule and used in fortifications), and stands once again
prominently on the west end of the Acropolis. Its plan is tetrastyle, amphiprostyle, with a small
nearly square cella, the whole measuring some 5.397 by 8.166 metres (18 by 27 feet). The front
of the cella has two piers between antae, and was closed with a bronze grill, evident from
cuttings. It replaced an earlier, simple naiskos (small temple) that still exists beneath it. A
continuous frieze runs around the four sides (parts of the original are now in the British
Museum, the rest in the Acropolis Museum, with casts in place), featuring battle scenes and a
gathering of gods on the east front. Fragments of pedimental sculpture (a Gigantomachy and
an Amazonomachy) and the figural acroteria are in storage. The sanctuary had a sculptured
parapet around the perimeter, with winged Nikai bringing cows for sacrifice to Athena (now in
the Acropolis Museum). Inscriptions (Inscriptiones Graecae I3 35, 36) name Kallikrates as the
architect, and call for the construction of an altar (fragments of which remain) and for the
appointment by lot of a priestess from Athenian women. A near twin of this temple was built
high above the Ilissos River of Athens, preserved until the late eighteenth century and drawn by
James Stuart and Nicholas Revett (The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 1, chapter 2). The Temple
on the Ilissos River (c. 435–430) had a longer cella but otherwise a very similar plan and
elevation. Only a few slabs of its frieze and its deepest foundations remain.
Figure 16.30. Detail of the Temple of Athena Nike, Athens. Callicrates used a corner capital
that has two outer volutes and bolsters that form an inner re-entrant angle. A continuous frieze
showing both legendary and historical battles was placed above all four sides (here in replica
casts); it was brightly painted, as indeed were the mouldings and the capitals.

Temple of the Athenians, Delos (425–420 BCE)

This Doric temple has a unique plan for the period, hexastyle amphiprostyle – six columns on
each short end – and measures 11.06 by 18.85 metres (36 by 62 feet). Because it evidently had
to fit between two earlier, parallel temples, the Porinos Temple (c. 525 BCE) and the large
Temple of Apollo (c. 475–450 BCE; Key Buildings, fig. 16.5), there was no space for a peristyle;
all three face west. Inscriptions refer to it as the ‘Temple of the Athenians’ until the island’s
independence from Athens, when it is listed as the ‘Temple of the Seven Statues’. Its interior
had a horseshoe-shaped base that supported seven statues, one of them possibly an Archaic
image of Apollo, set into Eleusinian limestone. Four pilasters were set between the antae at the
front, and the cross-wall of the pronaos had two windows. On the back (east) side, six engaged
pilasters were aligned with the six columns. There was an added decorative course between
the Doric frieze and the geison. It was constructed of Pentelic marble, and probably dedicated
by the Athenian general Nikias in 417 BCE, when he staged an impressive procession for
Apollo. The construction likely was related to the purification of the island undertaken by
Athens after the city suffered three bouts of plague. The central acroterion featured two
abductions: Boreas and Orithyia (in the museum), and Eos and Kephalos (fragmentary). In
mouldings, proportions and its capitals, it shows a close affinity to the Periclean Parthenon (Key
Buildings, fig. 16.8).
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens (421–406 BCE)

The Erechtheion is built on the north side of the Acropolis, its south porch (with Caryatids)
overlapping the foundations of the Old Temple of Athena Polias, which was burned by the
Persians in 480/479 BCE. It is called the ‘Erechtheion’ by Pausanias (Book I, chapter 26, section
5). The temple was built for a multiplicity of cult places, honouring Athena Polias, Erechtheus,
Poseidon, Kekrops and several others. The most revered and important wooden image of
Athena was kept here. The ingenious plan was designed to adapt formal Ionic architecture to
differing entrance levels on each side, and to enclose or enframe the cult places; the material is
primarily Pentelic marble. A rectangular cella forms the central building (11.63 by 22.76 metres,
or 38 by 75 feet), with a prostyle colonnade of six columns facing east, four engaged columns
in antis on the west side, a small porch supported by six caryatids on the south, and a larger
porch with six Ionic columns on the north. Also on the north side was a marble-paved courtyard
framed by the north porch and the wall of the temple on the south, and a flight of bench-like
steps on the east, used for ceremonies. Outside the west end was Athena’s Sacred Olive Tree,
her gift to Athens (it was replanted in the twentieth century). The main cella is divided into two
chambers, and possibly the western chamber was divided further into two more. The
decorative treatment of the temple is purely Ionic, with a continuous sculpture frieze around
the building (white marble figures dowelled to dark grey Eleusinian limestone backing), and
elaborate sets of decorative mouldings. The temple was much admired in antiquity and
elements such as the caryatids were copied in Rome, and on the Acropolis itself with the round
Temple of Roma and Augustus that was modelled on the Erechtheion’s north porch.
Figure 16.31. Caryatids on the Erechtheion porch. The south porch of the Erechtheion (Temple
of Athena Polias), with Caryatids (now replica casts), has been much quoted and copied in later
architecture. They probably represented priestesses of Athena in procession, and they carried
libation dishes. They, along the mouldings above and below them, were brightly painted.

Athenian Agora, Athens (fifth century BCE)

The Athenian Agora lies northeast of the Acropolis on gently sloping terrain. A bustling city
centre, it served both as a marketplace and as the centre of civic administration, and also
included numerous shrines, altars and temples. The Agora is divided diagonally by the
Panathenaic Way, a major thoroughfare and the route of the Panathenaic procession. This very
ancient street led from the Dipylon Gate within the Kerameikos region to the northwest (with a
cemetery on the outer side of the gate), through the Agora and up to the Acropolis. The edges
of the Agora were gradually filled with buildings by 400 BCE, notably a series of stoas, which
served a variety of functions, as gathering places, administrative centres, and for display of
trophies, paintings and commemorative statuary. A circular building (the Tholos, outside
diameter 18.32 metres or 60 feet), built around 470–460 BCE, served as a dining room and
meeting hall for the prytaneis (chairmen) of the Athenian boule (Council). A new bouleuterion
(council house) was built on the west side of the Agora by around 400 BCE, with either curved
or rectangular seats in the interior. The city’s mint was in the southwest corner. The Altar of the
Twelve Gods in the northwest corner of the area, surrounded by a paved enclosure, was
considered the centrepoint of the city.
Figure 16.32. Panoramic view of the Athenian Agora. The Athenian Agora was the city’s heart,
used for administration, legal procedures and commerce, but also filled with shrines and altars.
By the late 5th century BCE, stoas lined three sides of the large trapezoidal open space. The
most important religious processions (for the Panathenaic and Eleusinian festivals) passed
through.
Temple of Apollo Epikourios, Bassai (c. 429–400 BCE)

High in the mountains of southern Arcadia lies the sanctuary of Apollo Epikourios, site of the
well-preserved Temple of Apollo, which stands up to the level of the architrave (now under a
large tent). Pausanias states that Iktinos was the architect, and there is no reason to doubt it;
Athenian masons were among the crew as well, as evidenced by masons’ marks in the Attic,
Ionian island and Argive alphabets. The hexastyle Doric temple (6 by 15 columns, stylobate
14.55 by 38.33 metres or 48 by 126 feet) is oriented north–south, and its overall plan repeats in
general outline the plan of its Archaic predecessor(s), whose foundations lie somewhat further
south. The temple is built primarily of varieties of local limestone, but with roof elements and
other details of marble from Cape Tainaron in the southern Peloponnese. The roof had floral
acroteria, but no other exterior sculpture; there were sculpted metopes above the entrances to
the pronaos and opisthodomos. The inner building consists of a deep pronaos, cella and
opisthodomos. The antae of both ends of the inner building are aligned with the third flank
column from each end, thus centred perfectly within the peristyle, and creating spacious areas
front and back for gatherings and ceremonies. The interior of the cella is divided into two areas
by columns and sculpture that create one chamber, and a second chamber beyond it, much like
an adyton. In the first, two rows of five Ionic columns stand partially engaged against spur walls
that project from the cella walls; the fifth spur walls on each side project diagonally towards the
entrance, rather than perpendicular to the side walls. Between the fifth, end Ionic columns
stood a single column, with a Corinthian capital, the first known use architecturally of this type.
An interior continuous Ionic sculpted frieze (now in the British Museum) ran above the four
sides of the space created by the columns, representing a Centauromachy and two
Amazonomachies. The cult image stood in the far southwest corner of the back chamber on a
slightly raised paving slab. The east side wall near the back of the cella has a large, door-like
window, enclosed by an iron grid (not a means of access) that allows the rays of the rising sun in
mid-summer to fall on the image within the back chamber.
Figure 16.33. Temple of Apollo Epikourios, Bassai. This temple deep in Arcadia in the
Peloponnese was almost certainly built by Iktinos, one of the Parthenon’s architects. Here he
had to follow an earlier Archaic plan, but he added splendid new decorative features to make
this a forward-looking design – including the first interior use of the Corinthian capital.

Temple of Hera (II), Argos (c. 420–400 BCE)

This hexastyle temple was built of local stone (stuccoed), with a plan that includes a pronaos,
the cella, an opisthodomos (6 by 12 columns, stylobate c. 17.10 by c. 36.62 metres or 130 by
66 feet), and a ramp leading up to the east end. Pausanias (Book 2, chapter 17, subsection 3)
names Eupolemos of Argos as the architect. The cella includes an inner colonnade, but the
exact arrangement is uncertain (two rows of five, six or eight inner columns, with a
superimposed upper tier, and a return at the back of the cella). The sima, roof tiles, metopes,
pedimental sculpture and floral acroteria were made of Pentelic and Parian marble. Both the
raking and lateral sima are carved in low relief with alternating lotus and palmettes and
interspersed cuckoo-birds, a bird sacred to Hera. The architectural sculpture included the
themes of a Gigantomachy, an Amazonomachy, the birth of Zeus and the Fall of Troy. A
chryselephantine statue of Hera, holding a pomegranate and a sceptre, stood in the temple.
The previous Archaic Temple of Hera (I) burned down in an accidental fire in 423 BCE
(Thucydides, Book 4, chapter 133), and this temple was built soon after on a terrace below the
site of the earlier temple.
Further Reading
Bell, Malcolm. ‘Stylobate and Roof in the Olympieion at Akragas’. American Journal of
Archaeology 84 (1980): 359–72. Brinkmann, Vinzenz, et al. (eds). Gods in Color: Painted
Sculpture of Classical Antiquity. Munich: Stiftung Archäologie Glyptotek, 2007. Camp, John
The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven, NJ and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Cooper,
Frederick. The Temple of Apollo Bassitas, The Architecture. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: American
School of Classical Studies, 1996. Coulton, John. Ancient Greek Architects at Work. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1977. Economakis, Richard (ed.). Acropolis Restoration: The CCAM
Interventions. New York, NY: St Martin’s Press, 1994. Haselberger, Lothar. ‘The Construction
Plans for the Temple of Apollo at Didyma’. Scientific American 253, no. 6 (1985): 126–32.
Haselberger, Lothar (ed.). Appearance and Essence, Refinements of Classical Architecture:
Curvature. Philadelphia, PA: The University Museum, 1999. Hellmann, Marie-Christine.
L’architecture grecque, 2: Architecture religeuse et funéraire. Paris: Picard, 2006. Hurwitt,
Jeffrey The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to
the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Klein, Nancy ‘Evidence for Western
Greek Influence on Mainland Greek Roof Construction in the Archaic Period’. Hesperia 67
(1998): 383–422. Korres, Manolis. From Pentelikon to the Parthenon. Athens: Melissa, 1995.
Lippolis, Enzo, Monica Livadiotti, and Giorgio Rocco. Architettura greca: Storia e monumenti
del mondo della polis dalle origini al V secolo. Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2007. Mertens, Dieter.
Städte und Bauten der Westgriechen: Von der Kolonisationszeit bis zur Krise um 400 vor
Christus. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006. Miles, Margaret (ed.). A Companion to Greek
Architecture. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. Neils, Jenifer (ed.). The Parthenon from
Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Nevett, Lisa Domestic
Space in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Oleson, John (ed.).
Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008. Pedley, John. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pollitt, Jerome (ed.). The Cambridge History of Painting in
the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Rhodes, Robin Architecture
and Meaning of the Acropolis of Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Ridgway, Brunilde Prayers in Stone. Greek Architectural Sculpture ca. 600–100 BCE. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1999. Rowland, Ingrid, and Thomas Noble Howe. Vitruvius
Ten Books on Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Schultz, Peter, and
Ralf von den Hoff (eds). Structure, Image, Ornament: Architectural Sculpture in the Greek
World. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2009. Senseney, John The Art of Building in the Classical World:
Vision, Craftsmanship, and Linear Perspective in Greek and Roman Architecture. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011. Shoe, Lucy Profiles of Greek Mouldings. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1936. Tournikiotis, Panayotis (ed.). The Parthenon and Its Impact in
Modern Times. Athens: Melissa, 1994.

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15.10.

2018 S r Ban ster Fletcher’s Global H story of Arch tecture

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Classical Greece, c. 500–400 BCE

History and Geography

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Map 16.1. Classical Greece c. 450 BCE.

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Culture and Society

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Athenians proudly considered themselves autochthonous (native to the land), in contrast to

Architecture As A Response to Victory

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Temples East and West

(here 6 by 10 columns, c. 32 by 55 metres), and is built on a crepidoma of two steps, in

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Later Fifth-century BCE Styles

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Older Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens (490–485 BCE)

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Treasury of the Athenians, Delphi (490–485 BCE)

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Piraeus Harbour, Piraeus, Athens (begun c. 490 BCE)

Temple of Aphaia (II), Aegina (c. 480–475 BCE)

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Temple of Athena, Syracuse, Sicily (c. 480–470 BCE)

Temple of Zeus, Agrigento (formerly Akragas), Sicily (c. 490–

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Temples A (Herakles), C (Demeter and Kore), D (Hera), E

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Temple of Hera (E3), Selinous, Sicily (c. 470 BCE)

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Temple of Apollo, Delos (c. 475–450 BCE)

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Temple of Hera II, Paestum (formerly Poseidonia), Italy (c. 470

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