Tradition and Innovation in Doric Design IV: The Fourth Century

Abstract

The interest of late fifth century architects in Ionicizing proportions and ornament was further developed in temples of the fourth century, especially those lacking important predecessors on the same site (Asklepios at Epidauros, Nemea, Pronaia III at Delphi). Replacements for large Archaic buildings were frequently archaizing in plan (Tegea, Apollo at Delphi), and even in some interior arrangements (Delphi), since the new buildings were often erected on the earlier foundations. Such archaizing was probably due to economic considerations; the great epoch of Doric temple building had now passed, so that the rebuilding of major historic was done without unnecessary expense. It is here argued that the old-fashioned 6 x 14 peristyle at Tegea is due, like the 6 x 15 plans at Bassai and Delphi, to reuse of Archaic foundations, constructed in the late sixth century for a temple for which Endoios made the cult statue. After being damaged by fire in 395, this old temple, with a makeshift roof over the cella, served the cult of Athena until ca. 345, when money became available for starting the extant building, designed by Skopas. The porches and peristyle of the Skopas building were traditional in plan, although with columns and decoration of fourth century style; the cella, however, was completely modern-an undivided space enclosed by walls adorned with tiers of half-columns (Ionic over Corinthian) and a profusion of Ionicizing ornament. Moreover, the Corinthian capitals at Tegea were the first designed specifically for half-columns, hence their uncanonical form. During the fourth century 6 x 12, and even 6 x 11, plans are found (Nemea, Asklepios at Epidauros, Metroon at Olympia, Stratos). These short, wide plans were sometimes combined with the late Archaic (Athena/Paestum, Pronaia II/Delphi) suppression of the opisthodomos (Nemea, Epidauros); when the opisthodomos is retained, the cella becomes almost square (Olympia, Stratos). The later fifth century trend toward slenderer columns and wider intervals also developed further during the fourth century. Many new temples of the period were too small to permit a peristyle. Thus Pronaia III at Delphi and Artemis at Epidauros were prostyle designs. In Pronaia III and the newly built, or rebuilt, later temple of Dionysos below the theater at Athens, the porch is somewhat wider than the cella, producing the T-plan often encountered in Hellenistic designs. Even these smaller buildings may have rich non-Doric interior decoration (Ionic in Pronaia III, Corinthian at Epidauros). Interior figure-friezes, however, and even exterior figure-sculptures, evidently became less and less common, at least in connection with columnar entablatures and in pediments. Fourth century developments cannot be understood in terms of the aesthetics of fifth century designs, for architects of the period were trying to grapple seriously with problems of interior space and ornament that had been virtually untouched before the end of the preceding century. In so doing they set the stage for many of the new architectural developments of Hellenistic and Roman times. The third article in this series dealt at some length with the interior design of the temple of Apollo at Bassai, and its lace in the history of Greek temple architecture.' Initially, the new ideas incorporated in the Bassai interior were most enthusiastically taken up, not in temples, which were more likely to be conservative in design, but in quasi-religious monuments such as the Tholoi at Delphi and Epidauros. It is perhaps significant that both these buildings, together with the temple at Bassai, may have been associated with an Argive architectural tradition2; for the Argolid was certainly exposed to Athenian influence and ideas during the late fifth century, but equally certainly had its wn independent schools of architecture and sculpture. In any event, unlike Eupolemos' new temple in the Argive Heraion, and like the interior room at Bassai, the Tholos at Delphi was totally untraditional in character. The Doric exterior columns were extraordinarily slender, if the French restoraI AJA 84 (1980) 399-416. The following abbreviations are used in this final article of the series: Architecture3: W.B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece3 (London 1950). Berve-Gruben: H. Berve and G. Gruben, Greek Temples, Theaters and Shrines (New York 1963). Biising, Halbsaile: H. BUsing, Die griechische Halbsdiule (Wiesbaden 1970). Lawrence: A.W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture (Harmondsworth 1957). Roux, L'architecture G. Roux, L'architecture de l'Argolide au de l'Argolide: IVe et IIe sidcles av. J.-C. (Paris 1961). 2 Suggested by Roux, L'architecture de l'Argolide 131-200 (Epidauros), 329 (Delphi).