An examination of the foundation for the east wall reveals an interesting condition which is unintelligible if the cella of Athena had a higher floor-level than the western cella. In the north-east corner, a marble block of the north wall is cut back to the line of the west face of the poros foundation (Fig. 10). If the marble block lay buried beneath the floor, why was it so carefully trimmed? The explanation may be offered that the cutting was done when the temple was made over into a church. But the chiseling is more careful than the chiseling done at that time in the Erechtheum. When the eastern partition-wall was removed, rough traces of it were left on the side-walls. The treatment of the block in question is Greek in its carefulness and the cutting was probably made to receive a slab of the marble facing which concealed the foundation-blocks of the east wall.
Figure 10 The N.E. corner of the cella of AthenaFigure 10The N.E. corner of the cella of Athena
There is another serious difficulty in the way of those who believe thatthe eastern cella had a higher level than the western. The south wall of the temple had orthostates on the outside but none on the inside where wall-blocks of the usual height took their place. These wall-blocks were easily torn out and have since completely disappeared. In the western chamber orthostates would have been illogical because they would have been high above the level of the floor, but in the eastern cella, if it had the level of the eastern porch orthostates would have been used. Since there were wall-blocks behind the orthostates of the south wall in the western cella, one would reasonably expect orthostates behind wall-blocks in the north wall of the eastern cella, provided that cella was at the level of the eastern porch. But it is absolutely certain that such was not the case. The notched form of the orthostate at the north-east corner of the temple shows that it was in contact with two courses of wall-blocks of regular height in the north wall. Thus the eastern cella, if it lay at the level of its porch strangely lacked interior orthostates in its north and south walls. But if this cella lay at the level of the western cella, the lack becomes at once intelligible. The absence of orthostates at the supposed higher floor-level of the eastern cella combines with the absence of any cutting for a foundation for the wall between the cellae to prove the theory which is in perfect harmony with the simple sequence in the description by Pausanias.
The theory of one level within the Erechtheum seems to contradict and to be contradicted by the evidence which Stevens has found of a door in the east wall (A. J. A., 1906, p. 58 ff.). The contradiction is not necessary, for a flight of steps at the east end of the cella of Athena is perfectly possible. The construction of an apse for the church at the east end of the temple necessitated the removal of a number of foundation-blocks which might have given evidence of steps. However it is quite possible that the foundations for the steps which had no need to rest in rock cuttings were simply laid against, not keyed into the foundations of the east wall. The stairs are drawn in the plan (Fig. 7). The idea of a stair-case at the east end of a cella is illustrated by the temple at Didyma. The eastern door of the Erechtheum was not the normal, not the intended entrance to the cella of Athena, but served as the traditional eastern entrance toward which the xoanon faced. Pausanias like other visitors entered by theπρόστασις ἡ πρὸς τοῦ θυρώματος, the main entrance to the temple.
It is interesting to note some evidence which shows that in the periodbefore the Erechtheum was converted into a Christian church there was no difference of level within the building, namely, the masses of rubble masonry which were placed close to the north wall at approximately equal distances from the eastern cross-wall. They are firmly founded on the rock and reach up nearly to the base of the orthostates. They have no counterparts along the south wall. The screen-wall of the north aisle of the church stood directly over one of the masses. The threshold of it is still in place. These heavy foundations and the interior longitudinal walls of the church cannot be contemporary. The latter were sufficient to carry the weight of the roof of the church; and the screen-wall in the aisle, since it rests partly on a filling of earth, shows that the heavy foundation of rubble masonry underneath had ceased to serve any purpose after the church was built. It was there before that time and therefore must have been laid in a Roman period when the level within the temple was the same.
Any discussion of the workmanship of this mass of stones and mortar has no bearing on the question of its date and that of the threshold above. The point is, the masonry is earlier than the Christian church, and quite embarrasses the advocates of a higher level for the eastern cella in the period before the conversion of the temple into a Christian church. This foundation then is perfectly intelligible in the light of the theory that in Greek times there was but one level within the temple. What the purpose of this rubble masonry was is uncertain. The substantial and solid character of the masses leads one to believe that they were foundations for piers or pillars which reached to the top of the adjacent wall and together with it supported heavy cross-beams which spanned the cella from north to south. The idea may have come to the Romans from the Greek pilaster which as noted above lay approximately midway between the masses of rubble masonry. This was, then, apparently a device for reducing the span from the north to the south wall. The fact that this masonry was laid before the period of the church is of far greater importance than its purpose.
The new plan of the Erechtheum is interesting in the light of the Chandler inscription. If one feels that the magnificent north porch determines the front of the building, then the first room is a satisfactoryπροστομιαῖονand lies in front of (πρό) the *στομιαῖονin which was the important object of cult, theφρέαρ(στόμιον). The following proportionmay be set down:πρόναος:ναός::προστομιαῖον: *στομιαῖον.Προστομιαῖονand *στομιαῖονare conjectured to have been the official names in the fifth century for the two chambers of theδιπλοῦν οἴκημαof Pausanias.
The order followed by the commissioners in their report upon unfinished interior walls was as follows: In the first room entered from theθύρωμα, theπροστομιαῖον, 12 tetrapodies wereἀκατάχσεστα. The phraseἐν τῷ προστομιαίῳfavors the theory that more walls than one are meant. Then in the inner chamber 3 tetrapodies of theπαραστάς,[7]i.e., that part of the partition-wall east of the door in the west cella. Then in the third room 6 (?) tetrapodies of the wallπρὸς τὀγάλματος. The order in which the chambers were examined for unfinished walls was that of Pausanias in describing their contents.
Again the new plan fits the treasure list of 306/5 B.C. (I.G., II,2733). The remarkable feature of the inscription is that it mentions threeπαραστάδες, first an isolated one, and then a pair of them, one on either side of a door. The singleπαραστάς, the first to be mentioned is again that part of the partition-wall east of the door in the west cella. This door was near the west end of the wall, so that the space between it and the west wall of the temple was negligible. Thus for one entering by that door there was aπαραστάςon the left, but none on the right. When however he passed into theναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶςthrough a door which stood a little south of the middle of the wall (and opposite the door in the west wall of the temple) he had aπαραστάςupon his left and also upon his right. Theπαραστάδεςare interior walls on either side of a door which in the Erechtheum reached up only five courses above the orthostates. The paintings which Pausanias found in the first room favor the opinion that the treasures which hung on the parastas were on the south side of that wall—i.e., in the second room of theδιπλοῦν οἴκημα. Whether or not there is any order in the enumeration of the treasures is a question. If there is, then it naturally begins with treasures first seen after entering from theπρόστασις ἡ πρὸς τοῦ θυρώματος, just as the record of the commissioners inthe case of interior walls begins with walls in the first room, just as the description of Pausanias begins with the contents of the first room. This coincidence is remarkable, and is true of no other theory about the temple.
It is a necessary consequence of this interpretation that some treasures were in the west part of the Erechtheum. Perhaps then something may be said for the scholiast on Aristophanes,Plutus, 1183 (readingοἶκοςforτοῖχοςand keeping in mind theδιπλοῦν οἴκημαof Pausanias's description):ὀπίσω τοῦ νεὼ τῆς καλουμένης Πολιάδος Ἀθηνᾶς διπλοῦς οἶκος (τοῖχος) ἔχων θύραν, ὅπου ἦν θησαυροφυλάκιον. The wordsἔχων θύρανsuggest that the scholiast wished to distinguish between aδιπλοῦς οἶκοςthe two parts of which were connected by a door and another type the two parts of which were not so connected but separately entered from without. Pausanias seems to give an instance of the latter in II, 25, 1. White (Harvard Studies, Vol. VI, p. 39) refers the scholium to the restored west part of the Hekatompedon but does not discuss the meaning ofἔχων θύραν, which Michaelis was unable to explain. In White's so-called opisthodomus, to which door of three possible ones does the scholiast refer? The three chambers of his opisthodomus do not satisfy the requirements of aδιπλοῦς οἶκος, the reading which he accepts (op. cit., p. 4, note 3). More reasonable is the interpretation that the scholiast had in mind the west cella of the Erechtheum in which some treasures seemed to have been placed, and that he used the wordsνεὼς καλουμένης Πολιάδος Ἀθηνᾶςin the stricter sense, just as Pausanias called the east cellaναὸς τῆς Πολιάδος(I. 27. 1), and regarded theδιπλοῦς οἶκοςas lying behind it. Theνεὼς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶςwas oriented east, and what was immediately west was behind it. But it is not to be supposed that the west cella of the Erechtheum was ever called an opisthodomus. The scholiast seems however to have the oldest Athena temple in mind.
There is a point perhaps of slight moment which deserves a word. One of the paintings, that of Erechtheus driving a chariot, was painted, according to the scholiast on Aristides, I, 107, 5, behind the goddess. A possible interpretation is that the painting was in the cella of Athena on the wall behind the xoanon, but the paintings of the Butadae were in the first room which Pausanias entered. Unless the painting of Erechtheus was separate from those of the Butadae, then the new arrangement of the interior permits a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. For the east wall of the roomin which were the paintings of the Butadae was behind the goddess. According to the old plan, Pausanias found the paintings in the western chamber of theδιπλοῦν οἴκημα, that is, between them and the wall against which stood the xoanon, was a chamber. The passage may mean that in a painting Erechtheus appeared behind Athena driving a chariot (Petersen,Jb. Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 64;Burgtempel, p. 110). In the sequence of words in the sentence,ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλει ὀπίσω τῆς θεοῦ, the second phrase seems to be a closer definition of the place than is given in the first. Furthermore, position was determined by reference to the xoanon. An interior wall was located with reference to it,τὸ πρὸς τὀγάλματος. The scholiast on Aristophanes,Equites, 1169, is interesting in this connection because he shows what part a statue might play in the designation of a temple:δύο εἰσὶν ἐπὶ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως Ἀθηνᾶς ναοί, ὁ τῆς Πολιάδος καὶ ἡ χρυσελεφαντίνη.
In the light of the new arrangement within the Erechtheum, the reference of Vitruvius (IV, 8, 4) to the temple becomes clearer. Speaking of it and other temples he says: "cellae enim longitudinibus duplices sunt ad latitudines uti reliquae, sed is omnia quae solent esse in frontibus ad latera sunt translata" (Petersen,Burgtempel, p. 144). If the cella of Athena was completely separate from that of Erechtheus and at a higher level, he could not have said reasonably of the cella of the temple that it was twice as long as wide like other temples. For the cellae of Athena and Erechtheus ought then to have been considered separately. In the new plan such a statement applies with greater force because the low partitions might be readily disregarded. The second statement shows that Vitruvius regarded the east façade of a temple as the front, and normal place of entrance, but that this and the more elaborate porch were transferred in the case of the Erechtheum to what would be the side of other temples. As Petersen, (op. cit., p. 143) says, the words "columnis adjectis dextra ac sinistra ad umeros pronai" are a clear reference to the north porch. This too seems to be theπρόναοςwhich Lucian refers to in Piscator, 21:ἐνταῦθά που ἐν τῷ προνάῳ τῆς πολιάδος δικάσωμεν. Ἡ ἱέρεια διάθες ἡμῖν τὰ βάθρα, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐν τοσούτῳ προσκυνήσωμεν τῇ θεῷ. This interpretation is perfectly consistent with the fundamental contention that theπρόστασις ἡ πρὸς τοῦ θυρώματοςdetermines the front of the building.
The theory set forth in the above pages is in perfect accord with the description in Pausanias. It is confirmed by the evidence of the inscriptionsand of the building itself so far as that evidence goes. The serious criticism of the accepted plan of the Erechtheum is that all theories based upon it disagree with the written evidences, not with one written record of a later period like the simple account of Pausanias, but with another record centuries earlier, namely the contemporary official inscription. Investigators attempt the solution of the problem after accepting the restored interior as certain. The keynote of the present theory is that the interior of the temple has been too far destroyed to make any one restoration absolutely certain on the basis of the evidence of the building alone, and that all available evidence must be used simultaneously to determine the correct restoration.
The question as to the original plan of the Erechtheum follows naturally the interpretation of the building as built. That the west wall was planned for its present place seems improbable for a number of reasons. The north porch is out of proportion to the room into which it opens, and by reaching beyond the west wall of the temple becomes in part porch to an open precinct. The west front has columns and Caryatids at different levels (Dörpfeld,Ath. Mitt., 1904, p. 101). The displeasing effect of this difference could not have been concealed by the walls of the Pandroseum, the south one of which reached as high as the parapet of the porch of the maidens. The latter porch illustrates the skill of the architect in concealing differences of level. The unique closed wall on which the maidens stand was his device for concealing from view from without, a door which was below the level of the porch and which belonged to the interior whereas the porch belonged to the exterior. The architect, by placing the entrance to the porch at the north east corner close to the wall, completely concealed the presence of the low door. With this care to conceal a difference of level, the west side of the temple is in marked contrast.
The north-west corner of the western cella is peculiar in two ways. The western jamb of the door cuts 3½ cm. into the west wall of the temple. This suggests crowding and is satisfactorily explained by the condition of the foundations below. The foundation of the west wall does not key into that of the north wall (Fig. 11), a fact seeming to prove that when the latter foundation was laid, it was not the intention of the architect to place a foundation in the line of the present west wall, and to crowd the door jamb into that wall.
Of the symmetrical exterior proposed by Prof. Dörpfeld there lies asuggestion in the fact that the north and south doors have the same axis, although the Caryatid porch has not. The porch seems to have been moved a little to the east of its intended place that it might not project beyond the west wall, but not far enough to prevent the cornice of the porch from so projecting.
The west wall itself offers evidence of a curtailment of the original plan. By way of introduction let us compare the east façade, which is Greek with the west façade, the part of which above the closed wall is Roman (Arx Athenarum, Pl. XXV, D, andA. J. A., 1906, Pl. VIII). The windows in the east wall which Stevens has determined with accuracy were placed at the height of four ordinary courses above the base moulding and two courses from the top of the wall, just as were the Roman windows in the west wall. The second course above the eastern windows was a moulding, the corresponding course above the western windows is plain probably because of the adjacent capitals. Below both sets of windows were three courses of blocks. In the east wall orthostates were justifiable, in the west wall they would have been illogical because on neither side was there a floor, but three courses equal in height to four ordinary courses were placed there. Stevens has shown that the eastern windows were seven courses high including the lintel. The western windows are five courses high. The explanation of the difference of height is simple. The eastern wall was thirteen courses high, the western eleven. The western windows were two courses shorter in order that they and their counterparts, the eastern windows, might be equidistant from the base of the wall, namely four ordinary courses, and from the top of the wall, namely two courses. The fact that the sills of the Greek windows were one meter lower than the Roman windows is of no consequence whatsoever. The fact of great importance is that the east and west windows occupied the same relative position in the façade. The stylobate of the western façade could not be placed so low as the eastern because of the door and the necessity of a heavy block three courses high at the south end of the wall. This block could not be placed lower because of the Cecropium (= temple of Pandrosus?) which crossed the line of the wall, to judge from the cuttings in it beneath the heavy block. Had the architect wished equality of height for the eastern and western colonnades he would have been compelled to place the stylobate of the western two courses lower. This would have madeit impossible to place a door in that wall which was necessary probably for a reason of cult.
Figure 11 The interior N.W. corner of the Erechtheum. Modern masonry under N. end of W. wallFigure 11The interior N.W. corner of the Erechtheum. Modern masonry under N. end of W. wall
In Roman times therefore the western windows were placed with careful reference to the eastern. Between the columns in each case appeared windows, two in the eastern wall with door between, three in the western where a door was impossible. Both façades were surmounted by epistyle, frieze and pediment. The wall below the western colonnade was a substitute for the higher ground level of the east side. The Romans who repaired the wall repaired it with reference to the east front. For them the west façade was simply a combination of wall with windows, and colonnade. Unless the Greeks had a western façade of columns and wall with windows essentially like the Roman restoration, we are forced to make a strange assumption. The Greek architect conceived the idea of combining wall with colonnade in one plane and then instead of carrying his idea to its conclusion put in a wooden grille in the intercoluminations above a low wall of three courses, a grille which answers to nothing in the east façade, and then left it to the Romans to exploit his idea by placing there three windows.
The only obstacle to the perfectly natural assumption that the Romans restored the essential features of the west wall as it was in Greek times is the testimony of a contemporary inscription (I. G., I, Suppl., 321. col. III, 18) that one Comon a carpenter was paid a sum of 40 dr. for "fencing" (διαφάρχσαντι) four intercolumniations on the wall toward the Pandroseum:διαφάρχσαντι τὰ μετακιόνια τέτταρα ὄντα τὰ πρὸς το͂ Πανδροσείο. The accepted interpretation of the passage is that a wooden grille was the final form of the west wall and remained so until Roman times. The objection to this interpretation is that we must then believe that the Greek architect planned a wooden grille for a marble building in a wall exposed to the elements where repair would be necessary from time to time and that only in the Roman period did the change to more enduring marble take place. It is probable that the wooden grille was only temporary and was soon replaced by a wall with windows. Whatever the interpretation of the inscription, the fact remains that the present form of the west wall is a restoration made with deliberate reference to the east façade. It is a studied restoration which far from being an arbitrary creation of the 4th century A.D., as Penrose (op. cit., p. 93) regarded it, is too original for aRoman period. The imitation is Roman, the idea is Greek. The very same idea is expressed in the Sidon sarcophagus of the mourning women, an Attic work of about 350 B.C. The illusion produced by the sarcophagus is that of female figures standing between the columns of the peristyle of a temple (Hamdy Bey-Reinach,Une Nécropole Royale à Sidon, p. 241). The west façade in Greek times as in Roman was simply a compression together in one plane of colonnade and wall—a combination to which the architect was forced by the curtailment of his plan.
It is almost certain that the original plan of the architect was for a building with an east and west portico equidistant from the north porch as Prof. Dörpfeld has maintained. The east and west façades were to be exactly alike, but, prevented by religious conservatism from building upon the sites of the Cecropium and Pandroseum, and thus compelled to abandon the western half of the original building, the architect sought still to save the similarity of the east and west façades. Since he was unable to build his projected west portico at the line to which he was forced back, he evolved as a substitute the idea of placing all the essential features of his west portico in one plane—column bases and base moulding of wall, columns and wall with windows, frieze and pediment. The low wall in the southernmost intercolumniation which for some reason was not completely closed was three courses high. The northern intercolumniation was completely closed as in Roman times and in the central ones, the windows rested on three courses equal in height to four normal Greek courses.
It must have been the desire for close similarity between the two façades which prevented both Greek and Roman architect from placing four normal courses beneath the western windows. The change from blocks of standard height led to a complication because there were eleven ordinary courses in the western wall instead of twelve which would have given exactly nine courses of the higher blocks. The eastern windows were simultaneously visible between the columns from points in the axis of the door (Fig. 7). It is natural to assume that those of the original west façade were to have been so. The curtailment of the plan which compelled the architect to place a compressed west façade on a high socle, eliminated the door. A natural substitution was a third window.
This theory as to the composition of the west wall suggests an interpretation of the unusual construction at the upper south-west corner of thetemple (A. J. A., 1908, p. 191, fig. 2, and p. 194, fig. 6; 1910, p. 297, fig. 3). There the south wall was reduced to one half of its regular thickness, and this thinner wall flanked on the east by the metopon which rested in part upon a square horizontal slab. The purpose of this metopon has remained obscure.
As hitherto remarked, it was the architect's intention to close the southern as well as the northern intercolumniation of the west wall but he was prevented, apparently for some religious reason. Now it seems very probable that the unusual construction at the corner is the result of an attempt to build a substitute wall for that which could not be placed in the southern intercolumniation. Two considerations favor this explanation. In the first place the horizontal slab inclines toward the opening. The certain purpose of this inclination was to shed rain-water. Secondly, traces on the south wall show that the metopon was coextensive in height with the opening and projected along the eastern edge of the horizontal slab. The epistyle of the metopon, which appears in the restoration (A. J. A., 1908, fig. 6, p. 196) is purely a conjecture and may be eliminated. But how far did this metopon project into the building? Was it coextensive in width as well as in height with the opening? The distance which the metopon projected into the building is not certainly known. In the restoration it is given as one foot but this is a calculation based on a combination of probabilities. The obvious provision to keep out rain-water, if it was to be successful, demands the extension of the metopon to the inner corner of the horizontal slab. But this slab unsupported could not have carried a marble metopon. This is a difficulty which seems to compel the assumption that the metopon was in part of lighter material.
Apart from serving the purpose of keeping out rain, the conjectured metopon would also be a counterpart to the northern intercolumniation when the façade was viewed from the west. The increase in weight due to the metopon and the horizontal slab necessitated a counterbalancing reduction in the weight of the south wall because of its insecure foundations. The idea, in short, is simply this. Just as when the architect was not allowed to place the west façade where he wished and retreated to a line at which he was allowed to build it in a necessarily modified form, so when he could not build a wall in the southern intercolumniation of that façade, he withdrew still farther back and built a substitute at the lineallowed. The extra weight thus produced was partly responsible for the thinning of the insecurely founded south wall.
It is Prof. Dörpfeld's theory that the Cecropium compelled the architect to place the present west wall 1 m. east of the line at which it was intended in the original plan to stand (Ath. Mitt., 1904, p. 105). He therefore regards that wall as an interior one of the original symmetrical temple. The theory here advanced is that the west wall is the original west façade compressed into one plane and placed at the line up to which the architect was permitted to build. The west wall of the Pre-Persian Erechtheum seems to have stood at about the same line to judge from the representation of it and the olive close by in the archaic pedimental sculpture to which reference has already been made (Petersen,Burgtempel, p. 22, abb. 2). Just as the architect of the Propylaea planned to cut through the Pelasgic wall and to build upon the precinct of Brauronian Artemis, but when he came to lay foundations was stopped at the wall, so the contemporary architect of the Erechtheum planned a symmetrical temple the west part of which was to occupy the site of the precinct of Pandrosus and Cecrops, but when he came to actual construction was stopped by the same religious conservatism. The form of the present west wall is as much like the originally planned west façade as the architect could make it. East and west façades were to be equidistant from the north porch and from the Caryatid Porch which would have served to break the monotony of the long rear wall.
Having discovered in the west wall the compressed façade of an originally symmetrically planned Erechtheum, it is desirable to inquire whether the curtailment of that plan caused a crowding of cults within the temple as finally built. It has already been remarked that the feeling which the north porch creates is that it should be, and was intended to be the porch to an interior of larger dimensions than those of the present plan. Now thethalassaand the mark of the trident were fixed, but the paintings of the Butadae and the three altars were movable. It is altogether probable that the congestion in the west half of the present Erechtheum was due to the crowding in of a chamber with the three altars of Poseidon-Erechtheus, Hephaestus and Butes, and the paintings of the Butadae—a chamber which in the original plan was to be placed at the west end of the symmetrical temple (Fig. 12).
Within the original Erechtheum at the east end marked off by a partition-wall was to be the shrine of Athena Polias. The western chamber ofPoseidon-Erechtheus, the exact counterpart of the eastern, was to receive the altars and paintings. The intervening central chamber of proportions in harmony with those of the north porch was to contain thethalassaand the sacred olive, which would require that the temple be in part hypaethral. Furtwängler (Sitzb. Mün. Akad., 1904, p. 371) rightly indeed objects to Dörpfeld's theory that the western cella in the original temple was to be an opisthodomus, on the ground that if the eastern cella contained a divinity, the western ought also. Furthermore, for those who believe that the magnificent north porch determines the front of the Erechtheum, the western cella would have been situated on the side, not at the rear of the temple. The interior wall-pilasters on either side of the doors were intended in the original to carry heavy cross-beams. In the temple as built, the eastern pair were carried up only five courses above the orthostates, i.e. as high as the partition-walls. Their completion was rendered unnecessary when the builders decided to put in theκαμπύλη σελίς.
Figure 12 The original plan of the Erechtheum.Figure 12The original plan of the Erechtheum.
When this original plan had to be abandoned, not only was the large central chamber reduced in breadth, but was divided into a front and rear cella. In the first of these, which one entered immediately from the north porch (ἐσελθοῦσι) were placed the three altars and on the walls, the paintings of the Butadae. In the inner cella (ἔνδον) were the trident-mark and thethalassa. It is perfectly clear why Pausanias found no doorleading from the first chamber of theδιπλοῦν οἴκημαinto theναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς. In the original plan, the cella of Athena and the large central chamber of the tokens were connected by a door in the middle of their partition-wall, while the cellae of Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus were not to be in immediate connection. These relations were preserved in the curtailed plan. The meaning of the door in the west wall is also simple. In the original plan the sacred olive tree and thethalassawere to stand in the large central chamber, but in the curtailed plan the sacred olive was left outside the temple and in the Pandroseum. A closed wall between the two tokens would have separated them completely. They belonged together, and a door was a poor substitute for a common chamber but it was the only means of connection possible.
The north porch in the original plan was to admit to boththalassaand sacred olive, but in the curtailed temple which left the olive outside, it could admit directly to the latter only by the addition of the little door in the southwest corner. The extreme simplicity of this door which is without such simple ornamentation as that of the south door suggests that in the original plan it was not intended to stand beside the elaborate north door. The little door as well as the one in the west wall were not features of the original Erechtheum, and their presence was therefore not made more noticeable by the addition of mouldings of any kind.
This interpretation, if correct, warrants the statement of the general principle that the Greek architect sought, in case of curtailment of his plan, to preserve as far as possible the essential features, and the relations of the parts to one another, of the original. The builder of the Erechtheum saved his west façade in modified form and found a place for the west cella in the reduced central chamber.
The Erechtheum as originally planned was an altogether symmetrical structure. The splendid north portal was to lead immediately into the cella of the tokens, on either side of which were the shrines of the divinities that had contended for the land of Attica. The balance of structure would have reflected a balance of cults. The original Erechtheum, in short, was an architectural sentence finely illustrating theμένandδέof Greek feeling. With the Parthenon and the Propylaea, it was to form a group of symmetrical monuments to crown the Athenian acropolis in a manner worthy of the Periclean Age.
FOOTNOTES:[1]A drawing of the façade as seen from this point is much needed.[2]See Dörpfeld,Ath. Mitt., 1911, p. 59, for latest discussion of the struggle.[3]The few known facts about the Arrephoroi are conveniently gathered together by Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 344.[4]I am indebted to Dr. L. D. Caskey of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston for the photograph. He has also very kindly given me the benefit of his intimate knowledge of the Erechtheum in various suggestive criticisms. I take this occasion to express my sense of obligation.[5]Pausanias seems to have been mistaken in speaking of two. So Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 574, note 6.[6]Cf. the disc with octopus ornament on the dress of one of the maidens with that published by Schliemann,Mykenae, p. 194, no. 240.[7]The origin and the meaning of the termπαραστάςis clear. Aπαραστάςis that which standsπαράa door or opening, i.e. a jamb. A passage in the inscription which gives specifications for Philon's Arsenal (I. G.II,^2 1054) is important in this connection. After prescribing the dimensions of the door of the arsenal, the material of the lintel, the inscription addsπαραστάδας στήσας λίθου πεντεληικοῦ κ. τ. λ.Theπαραστάδεςare clearly the door jambs which standπαράthe door. By an easy and simple extension the word came to designate not only the jamb but the wall of which the jamb was a part.
[1]A drawing of the façade as seen from this point is much needed.
[1]A drawing of the façade as seen from this point is much needed.
[2]See Dörpfeld,Ath. Mitt., 1911, p. 59, for latest discussion of the struggle.
[2]See Dörpfeld,Ath. Mitt., 1911, p. 59, for latest discussion of the struggle.
[3]The few known facts about the Arrephoroi are conveniently gathered together by Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 344.
[3]The few known facts about the Arrephoroi are conveniently gathered together by Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 344.
[4]I am indebted to Dr. L. D. Caskey of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston for the photograph. He has also very kindly given me the benefit of his intimate knowledge of the Erechtheum in various suggestive criticisms. I take this occasion to express my sense of obligation.
[4]I am indebted to Dr. L. D. Caskey of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston for the photograph. He has also very kindly given me the benefit of his intimate knowledge of the Erechtheum in various suggestive criticisms. I take this occasion to express my sense of obligation.
[5]Pausanias seems to have been mistaken in speaking of two. So Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 574, note 6.
[5]Pausanias seems to have been mistaken in speaking of two. So Frazer,op. cit., II, p. 574, note 6.
[6]Cf. the disc with octopus ornament on the dress of one of the maidens with that published by Schliemann,Mykenae, p. 194, no. 240.
[6]Cf. the disc with octopus ornament on the dress of one of the maidens with that published by Schliemann,Mykenae, p. 194, no. 240.
[7]The origin and the meaning of the termπαραστάςis clear. Aπαραστάςis that which standsπαράa door or opening, i.e. a jamb. A passage in the inscription which gives specifications for Philon's Arsenal (I. G.II,^2 1054) is important in this connection. After prescribing the dimensions of the door of the arsenal, the material of the lintel, the inscription addsπαραστάδας στήσας λίθου πεντεληικοῦ κ. τ. λ.Theπαραστάδεςare clearly the door jambs which standπαράthe door. By an easy and simple extension the word came to designate not only the jamb but the wall of which the jamb was a part.
[7]The origin and the meaning of the termπαραστάςis clear. Aπαραστάςis that which standsπαράa door or opening, i.e. a jamb. A passage in the inscription which gives specifications for Philon's Arsenal (I. G.II,^2 1054) is important in this connection. After prescribing the dimensions of the door of the arsenal, the material of the lintel, the inscription addsπαραστάδας στήσας λίθου πεντεληικοῦ κ. τ. λ.Theπαραστάδεςare clearly the door jambs which standπαράthe door. By an easy and simple extension the word came to designate not only the jamb but the wall of which the jamb was a part.