FINE 
 
 NA 
 
 280 
 
 .E37 
 
 1912a 
 

3 1924 096'' 785''' 328 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924096785328 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
"ESO- 
 
 
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 :^ 
 
 
 |\.5U.H-i=l^ 
 
 Copyright, 1912, by Princeton University Press 
 for the United States of America. 
 
 Printed by Princeton University Press, 
 Princeton, N. J., U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Significance of the Irregularity of the Propylaea i 
 
 II. An Interpretation of the Caryatid Porch . . -13 
 
 III. The Erechtheum as Built 19 
 
 IV. The Erechtheum as Planned 49 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. East Window of the Pinakotheke. 
 
 2. The Pinakotheke as seen from the base of the Bastion of the 
 Temple of Wingless Victory. 
 
 3. The Pinakotheke as seen from a point near the axis of the 
 
 CENTRAL portal. 
 
 4. ' Plan of Propylaea with zigzag road of ascent. 
 
 5. Scene on an Archaic Amphora. 
 
 6. North end of western interior foundation of the Erechtheum. 
 View from the east. 
 
 7. The ground plan, of the Erechtheum as built. 
 
 8. The north side of the door in the west wall. 
 
 9. North wall at place of contact with the eastern cross-wall. 
 
 10. The cutting in the marble block at the N. E. corner of the east- 
 ern CELLA below THE SUPPOSED FLOOR-LEVEL. 
 
 11. The INTERIOR N. W. corner of the Temple. 
 
 12. The original plan of the Erechtheum. 
 
I 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IRREGULARITY OF THE 
 
 PROPYLAEA 
 
 The irregular position of the door and the windows of the north-west 
 wing of the Propylaea has long been remarked, though no explanations 
 of the phenomenon have been offered. Bohn, Die Propylaeen der Akropo- 
 lis su Athen, p. 23, says of the south wall of this wing: Die Wand welche 
 die Halle von dem eigentlichen Gemach trennt, ist von einer Tiir und zwei 
 Fenstern durchbrochen, Erstere liegt jedoch nicht in der Mitte, die letz- 
 teren wiederum unsymmetrisch zu ihr. Irgend einen Grund, irgend eine 
 axiale Beziehung zu den Saulen vermochte ich in dieser abweichenden 
 Anordnung nicht zu finden." The east wall of the Erechtheum, on the 
 other hand {A. J. A., igo6, PI. 8), was pierced by a central door and 
 two windows equidistant from it. That such symmetrical arrangement 
 should obtain in the Erechtheum and not in the closely contemporary 
 Propylaea very justly occasions surprise. It is the purpose of this study to 
 attempt to explain the irregularity in the latter. 
 
 The first fact to be observed with regard to the fagade of the Pinakotheke 
 is concisely stated by Bohn (0^.. cit., p. 23) : pDie Stellung der Satilen 
 bestimmt sich dadurch'dass die Tangente an die Westseite der ostlichsten 
 genau in die entsprechende Flucht der Hexastylstiitzen fallt.'y The position 
 of the anta at the eastern end of the lesser colonnade is also fixed by the 
 requirement that it stand directly beneath a triglyph. This anta in turn 
 determined the position of the eastern window, for the west face of the 
 anta and the window are equidistant from the east wall of the Pinakotheke 
 (Fig. i). The coincidence can hardly be accidental. If the position of 
 the eastern window was thus determined by considerations of appearance 
 from a well-defined exterior point of view, it is probable that the position of 
 
2 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 the other two openings in the wall was similarly determined by a point or 
 points somewhere in the line of approach to the building rather than by 
 any consideration for objects within the Pinakotheke. Such a point is 
 readily found at the base of thej!lik©-bastion, from which both windows 
 and door are simultaneously visible between the columns (Fig. 2). The 
 western window appears at the extreme left of the intercolumniation ; the 
 eastern, at the extreme right. If the observer advance from this point 
 toward the Pinakotheke, the windows remain constantly in sight but ap- 
 pear to move more and more toward the middle of the intercolumniations 
 (Fig. 3). 
 
 Along no other line outside the portico can the three openings be viewed 
 thus simultaneously. Along the line noted, they may be viewed not only 
 simultaneously but in such mutual relation as to give a necessarily varying 
 yet satisfying appearance of symmetry. The facts point to two almost 
 unavoidable inferences : first, that the line of these points determines for us 
 the position of the last stretch of the zigzag road which led up to the 
 Acropolis ; second, that the asymmetrical placing of door and windows was 
 due to the architect's desire that the fagade should produce a complete and 
 unified impression upon the approaching observer. This wish of the archi- 
 tect, further, explains the unusual depth of the portico of the Pinakotheke. 
 As has already been stated, the position of the east window was fixed by 
 the anta before it. Such being the case, the depth of the portico was nec- 
 essarily conditioned by the visibility of the window from the bastion of the 
 Nike temple. Had the wall been moved forward, the window would in 
 greater or less degree have been concealed by a column, and the architect'^ 
 purpose in so far defeated. In view of the unusual depth of the portico the 
 effect of moving the wall still further back scarcely requires consideration. 
 
 If the last stretch of the zigzag road has been correctly determined, the 
 next stretch below must have reached from the Nike bastion to a point be- 
 low the pedestal of the monument to Agrippa. This pedestal, in turn, 
 affords important evidence confirming the theory that such was the course 
 of the road. The monument to Agrippa was erected in 27 B.C., that is, 
 before the Greek way was replaced by the Roman steps in the first ceritury 
 A.D. (Judeich, Topographde von Athen, p. 199, note). Its peculiar 
 orientation has never been explained^ but now, in view of the preceding 
 analysis, is easily explicable. From the bend in the road at the base of the 
 
Figure i 
 View of the east window of the Pinakotheke showing 
 ITS relation to .the east anta of the portico 
 
IRREGULARITY OF THE PROPYLAEA 5 
 
 bastion, the equestrian statue, which surmounted the high pedestal, was 
 seen in exact profile. This is proved by a glance at the plan (Fig. 4) in 
 which the axis of the road and the N-S axis of the pedestal converge at the 
 base of the bastion. From the turn in the road just below the pedestal, the 
 inscription on its west face could be easily read. But from the conjectured 
 road which is drawn in Judeich, op. cit., Plan II, it was impossible for a 
 person to read easily the inscription or see the equestrian group in exact 
 profile. Thus it seerns beyond question that the pedestal of. the monument 
 was oriented with reference to the ancient Greek roadway, the first clue to 
 which is given by the peculiar arrangement of the door and windows of 
 the Pinakotheke. The road thus determined possesses the signal advantage 
 over the other that it permitted an impressive view through the great 
 portal and an impressive approach to it from directly in front. 
 
 The simultaneous visibility of door and windows from the normal line 
 of approach is a hitherto unobserved feature of Periclean building which 
 is again happily illustrated in the closely contemporary Erechtheum. The 
 certain restoration by Stevens {A. J. A., 1906, PI. 9) of theea^wall,, 
 of this temple, shows that the door and windows were so placed i.5 to be 
 simultaneously visible from points in the axis of the door (Fig. 7). At a 
 distance of about 10 m. from the stylobate, the windows appeared in the 
 middle of the intercolumniations.^ The level ground in front of the facade 
 made possible an approach from straight in front. In order that the win- 
 dows might be simultaneously visible, they were crowded close to the* 
 door — a fact which probably compelled the architect to use a bronze-plated 
 door frame instead of a stone one such as he used in the north door. The 
 former permitted longer wall blocks between the door and window than 
 the latter would have allowed. 
 
 In the case of the Propylaea, the approach was by a zigzag road up a 
 steep grade. The last stretch of this road was oblique to the N-S axis of 
 the Pinakotheke. If. the fagade was to be viewed from that last stretch 
 of the zigzag road, an asymmetric arrangement of door and windows was 
 absolutely necessary. The windows and door had to be moved to the right 
 of their normal position. The east fagade of the Erechtheum and the 
 Pinakotheke both illustrate the same law that door and windows behind a 
 colonnade shall be simultaneously visible from before the colonnade. In 
 
 ' A drawing of the fagade as seen from this point is much needed. 
 
6 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 the east fagade of the Erechtheum, however, this law is observed in a 
 perfectly normal arrangement; in the Pinakotheke, observance of the .gen- 
 eral law necessitated an abnormal arrangement of the openings. 
 
 Yet an insurmountable difficulty in the way of complete observance of 
 the law lay in the necessity for considering the demands of two widely 
 separated points of view, one in the line of approach to the Propvlaea, the 
 other within the portico. A glance at the plan of the Propylaea (Fig. 4) 
 shows that lines drawn from the axis of the straight roadway at its lower 
 end to the door jambs of the Pinakotheke cut two columns unequally. The 
 line to the left side of the door is tangent to one column, the line to the 
 right side cuts deeply into the othei^. If the door had been placed with 
 reference solely to the view from the last stretch of the zigzag road, it 
 ought to stand farther to the west. That it does not so stand must be due 
 to the fact that the architect sought likewise to provide for the view of the 
 observer who approached the Pinakotheke from behind the hexastyle. It 
 is necessary to emphasize the fact that the passage back of the hexastyle 
 was the normal^ means of access to the Pinakotheke. The position of the 
 east window in the middle of its wall space would be quickly, if uncon- 
 sciously felt by the observer, with the result that the asymmetry of the 
 wall as a whole would not be noticed. Had the normal access to the wing 
 been from directly in front, between the first and second columns (counting 
 from the east), the fact that the windows were not equidistant from the 
 door would have been readily recognized, but, as it is, the observer who 
 entered the portico in the regular way at the east end saw directly in 
 front of him a wall space pierced by a centrally placed window. If the 
 door had been placed farther west, this advantage would have been lost. 
 If the zigzag approach we have indicated be correct, it follows that the 
 Pinakotheke was designed also for an observer who stood at the beginning 
 of the straight road through the portal, where it would have produced a 
 unified effect with the general structure. 
 
 It will be readily seen that if the S.W. wing, which was never completed, 
 had been built as an exact counterpart of the N.W. wing, the three parts 
 would have been designed to be seen from a common point at the begin- 
 ning of the straight road through the portal, and the structure though 
 tripartite would have been a symmetrical unit. Professor Dorpfeld (Ath. 
 Mitt., 1885, p. 45 ff.) has shown that the architect planned at one time a 
 
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IRREGULARITY OF THE PROPYLAEA 9 
 
 south-west wing with a colonnade instead of a closed west wall, and that 
 the present curtailed wing could have been incorporated in the wing as 
 planned, if permission had ever been given to encroach upon adjacent 
 sanctuaries. There is, of course, no gainsaying that a colonnade was at 
 one time projected for the west side of the wing, but does this fact in any 
 wise exclude the possibility of a still earlier plan? The only reason given 
 by Prof. Dorpfeld for the colonnade is that access might be had to the Nike 
 'iemple. But a closed wall in place of the colonnade would not have made 
 the temple inaccessible so long as there remained at the north-west corner 
 of the wing the steps which afforded a far more convenient approach to the 
 temple for those coming up to the Acropolis. Indeed, it seems quite pos- 
 sible that the architect, Mnesicles, originally planned a south-west wing 
 (Stuart & Revett, The Antiquities of Athens, II, V, PI. Ill) exactly 
 like the north-west wing, but that he was compelled to give it up, that his 
 compromise of a colonnade was also rejected, and that he had to content 
 himself with the curtailed form in which the wing now exists, but that he 
 so placed the back wall of the chamber that it might ultimately be incorpor- 
 ated in a wing with a colonnade on the west side. 
 
 There is, moreover, some reason to suspect that the architect was hostile 
 to the idea of having a temple on the bastion. The Propylaea and the 
 temple are obviously not features of a harmonious structural plan. The 
 Propylaea as the crowning gateway of the acropolis demanded an unob- 
 structed outlook toward the west. The presence of the little temple ob- 
 structs that outlook. When one learns that the senate voted the construction 
 of the temple in, or shortly before, 446 B.C., ('E^. 'Apx-, 1897, p. 179), 
 that is, at a time when we fairly assume that the Periclean building plans 
 for the acropolis were about ready, he is justified in suspecting that a con- 
 servative religious party sought permanently to thwart the builders in their 
 disregard of sanctuaries by placing a temple to Athena Nike on the bastion. 
 That the opposition of the priesthood^ checked completely the intention of 
 Pericles and his architects is shown by the fact that foundations were never 
 laid for ^Jie walls which would have stood either in the precinct of Artemis 
 Brauron ia, or in that of Athena Nike. 
 
 The most suggestive chapter in the struggle between priest and archi- 
 tect is the last. When the architect was forced to abandon the idea of 
 
 " See Dorpfeld, Ath. Mitt., 1911, p. 59, for latest discussioii of the struggle. 
 
lO 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 building a colonnade, he hoped that he could extend the south wall of the 
 wing 30 cm. west of its present position so as to align it with thq third 
 column of the north colonnade. The evidence for this is the poros blocks 
 under the floor of the wing which project just far enough west to have sup- 
 ported a pavement of marble slabs terminating at the western side of the 
 column (see the photograph in Jb. Arch. Inst., 1906, p. 139). These 
 blocks were never intended to serve as a step, for in that case marble 
 would have been used. Had the pavement and anta reached 30 cm. far- 
 ther, a pier of necessary diameter could have been erected between the 
 anta and the third column of the north fagade, and the architrave above the 
 pier could then have been of the same width as that of the north colonnade. 
 But even this slight concession was denied; the western line of the wing 
 was forced back; a unique pier had to be built and a narrow architrave 
 placed upon it (Bohn, op. cit., Taf. XVI). Even the poros blocks where 
 they encroach^ on the precinct appear to have been hacked away. 
 
 In the Propylaea itself, there survives some suggestion of the real atti- 
 tude of the architect toward the Nike temple and its bastion. The crepi- 
 doma of the south-west wing terminates in an anta which was intended 
 to stand free {Arch. Zeit., 1880, p. 86; Jh. Arch. Inst., 1906, p. 136, fig. 3) : 
 "Dass dieser Pfeiler in Form einer Anta gebildet ist, d.h. nach Nord und 
 Siid um ein wenig vorspringt, beweist dass hier urspriinglich ein selbstan- 
 diger Abschluss geplant war, genau wie an der Nordhalle." The objection 
 of Wolters (Bonner Studien, p. 95) does not invalidate Bohn's conclusion. 
 The former assumes that the blocks for the two corresponding antae were 
 ordered by the architect without his specifying for which anta the several 
 blocks were intended. Since the blocks are of different height, it seems 
 safe to infer that the stone-cutter knew exactly the place of each. Another 
 important fact is that the anta in question inclines 3 cm. to the west. 
 Dorpfeld who publishes this valuable observation in Ath. Mitt., 191 1, p. 5s, 
 says: "Fiir das Ende einer Mauer ist ein Uberneigen des oberen Teiles 
 nach aussen ganz unerhort. Wir diirfen also mit Sicherheit behaupten 
 dass die beideh Seitenwande des Vorplatzes der Propylaen nicht beendet 
 sind, sondern nach dem Plane des Mnesikles weiter nach Westen als Mar- 
 morwande mit mindestehs' je einer zweiten Ante fortgefiihrt werden soil- 
 ten. Im Siiden sollten die beiden Parastaden augenscheinlich die Treppe 
 7.um Nike-Tempel einfassen, im Norden sollten sie vermutlich eine Ttir 
 
IRREGULARITY OF THE PROPYLAEA ij. 
 
 bilden, die zu dem westlich von der Pinakothek befindlichen tief liegenden 
 Raume fiihrte." 
 
 The inference from Professor Dorpfeld's important observation is that 
 the anta was intended to carry a lintel or an architrave reaching west. 
 The question is just how much of the bastion was to be removed to make 
 room for this extension. The readiness of the architect to encroach upon 
 the precinct of the temple warrants the answer that the whole bastion was 
 to be removed. The anta, as Bohn says, was built to stand free like its 
 counterpart at the N.W. wing. The character of the extension remains a 
 matter of conjecture. Perhaps a colonnade was contemplated. 
 
 But if this is true, the question arises how does it happen that the 
 bastion of the temple, which certainly antedates the Propylaea, has a north 
 wall aligned with that of the S.W. wing of the Propylaea. The coincidence 
 must be the result of delil)erate plan and is best explained by the supposition 
 that when the bastion was built, the ground plan of the Propylaea and its 
 position were already known. The north wall of the bastion could there- 
 fore be built in line with that of the wing. The continuation of the north 
 wall of the bastion was broken away when work on the Propylaea was 
 begun. 
 
 Neither Pericles nor Mnesicles gave consent to the erection of the 
 Temple of Wingless Victory. In the leaning anta which was built to stand 
 free one reads their buried hope that the Propylaea might enjoy a finely 
 impressive command of the whole region west of the acropolis, a command 
 unannoyed by the hostile lines of the structurally insignificant temple of 
 Victory. 
 
Figure 4 
 Plan of the Peopylaea showing the zigzag road, the conjectured road (in dotted 
 lines), and the original form of the S.W. wing 
 
14 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 A further point of value is that the female figures in the procession 
 carried something on their heads, as is shown by their raised but broken 
 left arms. The position of the larger one which was intended to be seen 
 in front view is not certain because it was not attached to the wall like the 
 smaller female figure. It stood probably in the portico and may have 
 served as a Caryatid. Petersen {op. cit., p. 27) thinks these figures rep- 
 resent Arrephoroi rather than Canephoroi and his opinion is very reason- 
 able. The Arrephoroi annually carried some mysterious object on their 
 heads to the temple of Athena and Erechtheus. 
 
 The procession including Arrephoroi moving toward an entrance which 
 was the predecessor of the Caryatid Porch suggests an explanation of the 
 fact that the latter porch was not for common use. A restricted use of 
 the Caryatid Porch is a certain inference from the following facts. The 
 opening at the north-east corner of the porch is narrow and the step up 
 to it is twenty inches. If this means of access to the temple had been used 
 by the public, the step would have been lower and convenient. Again, 
 the delicate base mouldings of the building which run under this opening 
 would have been worn if the opening had been frequently used (Frazer, 
 Pausanias, II, p. 337). Frazer's conclusion is that the entrance was re- 
 served for priests. 
 
 This entrance like its predecessor was perhaps used by the Arrephoroi. 
 If it was the entrance- especially reserved for them, then the Caryatids may 
 very appropriately be regarded as statues of Arrephoroi. They adorn their 
 own porch. To such an identification the objection may be made that the 
 Caryatids are fully developed forms whereas the Arrephoroi were girls 
 between the ages of seven and eleven (Bekker, Anecdota Graeca, I. p. 202, 
 s. V. apprii^opelv ) but a structural necessity for heavier, fuller forms justi- 
 fied the license of the architect. The Caryatids are called Kopai in the 
 building inscriptions.^ 
 
 Tloe interpretation of the Caryatids as Arrephoroi is confirmed by a 
 scene (Fig. 5)^ on an archaic amphora which also makes possible a better 
 understanding of the Porch as a whole. The amphora which is now in 
 
 ' The few known facts about the Arrephoroi are conveniently gathered together by 
 Frazer, op. cit„ II, p. 344- 
 
 "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. 
 
II 
 
 THE CARYATID PORCH OF THE ERECHTHEUM 
 
 Not the least remarkable feature of the Erechtheum is . the Caryatid 
 Porch, which is generally regarded as a creation of the artist's fancy and 
 of no further significance. In the present study an attempt will be made 
 to prove that the maidens serve not only a structural and artistic purpose, 
 but that they also bear a relation in thought to the cult of the temple, not- 
 withstanding the fact that the female figure had been employed by earlier 
 architects merely as a support. If the subject of the frieze of the Erech- 
 theum, like that of the approximately contemporary Parthenon, was ap- 
 propriately drawn from the life and worship of the gods of the temple, 
 it is possible that the sculptured maidens of the unique Caryatid Porch also 
 bear a logical relation to the cult of the temple. 
 
 In the first place it may be observed that the entrance to the Erechtheum 
 at the Caryatid Porch corresponds in position closely to the south entrance 
 of the Pre-Persian Erechtheum. The archaic pedimental sculpture of 
 poros which is now in the Acropolis Museum (Wiegand, Porosarchitektur 
 der Akropolis :::n Athcn, Taf. 14; Petersen, Die Burgtempel der Athenaia, 
 p. 22, abb. 2) gives us a view of the early temple as seen from the south. 
 Close to the west side of the temple, the sacred olive of Athena appears 
 above a low wall, just as in a later period, it stood close to the west facade 
 of the Erechtheum and appeared above the south wall of the Pandroseum. 
 A precinct wall ran west from the south-west corner of both the earlier 
 and later Erechtheum. Along this wall in the pedimental sculpture figures 
 are passing toward- the temple. They have come from the direction of the 
 Propylaea. A procession moving from the Propylaea to the Caryatid Porch 
 had exactly the background of the sculptured figures. The correspondence 
 is complete when one notes that these figures are moving toward an tn- 
 trance which answers to the later Caryatid Porch. 
 
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THE CARYATID PORCH 
 
 17 
 
 the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston is published by De Ridder in B. C. H., 
 1898, p. 467 and pi. VI, and by Caskey in Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, 
 Vol. VII (1909), No. 38. In the scene on the neck of this amphora appears 
 a priestess followed by four maidens who bear upon their heads a long 
 chest. De Ridder compares the four maidens, with the Athenian Cane- 
 phoroi. Certain suggestive points may be noted. The maidens are four 
 in number, Ancient writers with the exception of Pausanias tell us that 
 there were four Arrephoroi at Athens.* The front of the Caryatid Porch 
 consists of four. Nor do comparisons stop here. The architrave which the 
 Caryatido (Arrephoroi) carry may be compared with the long chest which 
 the maidens bear on their heads, and the discs on the architrave with the 
 discs which ornament the chest. The discs on the architrave are usually 
 explained as a substitute for a frieze, but the logic of such substitution is 
 quite unclear. They are simply the ornaments which decorated the myster- 
 ious burden of the Arrephoroi. 
 
 The ceremony in the course of which the Arrephoroi carried the chest 
 may have had to do with a cult of the heroized dead. Tradition has it 
 that Erechtheus who was closely associated with Athena was buried in the 
 Erechtheum. The discs on the box and on the dress of the bearers sug- 
 gest those which were found in such numbers in the Mycenaean shaft- 
 graves.* But whatever the character of the ceremony, it had to do with the 
 cult which was housed in the Erechtheum. 
 
 The amphora just referred to is a Boeotian fabric, but that fact does 
 not nullify the importance of its bearing upon the problem in hand. The 
 Boeotian potter may have appropriated the scene from an Athenian source. 
 The comparative study of this amphora, the archaic pedimental sculpture 
 and the Caryatid Porch seem to justify the following conclusions. The 
 Caryatid Porch is a bold translation into marble of the Arrephoroi and 
 the disc-covered chest they carried upon their heads to the joint temple of 
 Athena and Erechtheus. The maidens are a particularly appropriate adorn- 
 ment of the porch which was reserved for their living prototypes. The 
 cprresponding entrance of the Pre-Persian joint temple was also used by 
 the Arrephoroi and may have had Caryatids in place of columns. If so 
 
 ' Pausanias seems to have been mistaken in speaking of two. , So Frazer, op. cit., H, p. 
 S74, note 6. 
 
 * Cf. the disc with octopus ornament on the dress of one of the maidens wi^ that pub- 
 lished by Schliemann, Mykenae, p. 194, no. 240. 
 
l8 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 the later temple reproduced a feature of the earlier temple just as the 
 equally unique sculptured drums of the earlier Artemisium at Ephesus 
 were reproduced in its successor. In a word the Caryatid Porch is not an 
 arbitrary creation but is related in thought to the cult of the temple. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 
 
 The present plan of the interior of the Erechtheum offers a number of 
 difficulties. Those of a general character may be considered first. Within 
 the cellae of Greek temples, the interior cross-wall is regularly at right 
 angles to the axis of the main entrance and not parallel to that axis as in 
 the west cella of the Erechtheum. The accepted plan of the cella com- 
 pels an orientation east and west instead of north and south for its two 
 chambers. The want of harmony in the proportions of the western cham- 
 ber and the porch which admits to it is hardly to be expected of an archi- 
 tect of the fifth century. He might perhaps be justified by the theory that 
 he labored under restrictions imposed by a complication of cults were it 
 not for the fact that the contemporary architect of the Propylaea planned 
 without regard to sanctuaries (cf. Furtwangler, Sitsb. Munch. Akad., 1904, 
 375). The feeling which the north porch creates is that it was intended 
 to be the entrance to an interior of larger dimensions than those of the 
 present plan. 
 
 Difficulties of a specific nature are encountered when one endeavors to 
 find in the plan certain details of the Chandler inscription (I. G., I, 322). 
 A satisfactory parastas cannot be located. It was an interior wall of some 
 sort. The word •n-poa-rofitalov the official name of one of the chambers in 
 the west cella has been derived from trpoaroiiiov which is conjectured to 
 have been the curb about the sacred well (Petersen, Die Burgtempel der 
 Athenaia, p. loi). But one naturally asks why the room of the sacred 
 well was not named from o-to'/moi/ . The ^p4ap (a-rofitov) was the im- 
 portant object of cult in the room. It is the OaKaaca which is mentioned 
 by Herodotus, and the (^peap by Pausanias, while nothing is heard about a 
 well-curb. The natural interpretation of TrpoaTo/ualov is the room in 
 
20 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 front of ( irpo) the * arofjualov, i.e., the room of the tnoiiiov. Now the 
 derivation of * arofualov (which does not, to be sure, occur in extant 
 records of the temple) . from arofuov is as simple as that of UavSpotrelov 
 from riai/SjOoo-o?. It is the entirely problematical irpoffTo/uov which 
 renders improbable the derivation from it of wpocrTOfualov. 
 
 There is another possible source of difficulty to be noticed. The in- 
 scription mentions four doors, 8>4 x 2j4 feet, for which there is no place 
 in the outside walls. These then must have been placed in the interior 
 walls. According to the present plan which shows a closed wall between 
 the shrines of Athena and Erechtheus these two double-doors must have 
 been in the western cross-wall where they could hardly have admitted to 
 a single room (Fowler and Wheeler, Greek Archaeology, p. 148, fig. 
 115). This obliges us to suppose a division of the middle chamber into 
 two parts and thereby presents a difficulty to those who believe that the word 
 SnrXovv in the description of Pausanias refers to the entire western part 
 of the Erechthetim. For the western cella would then consist of three in- 
 stead of two chambers. 
 
 Further difficulties of a serious nature are encountered when one at- 
 tempts to fit the text of Pausanias to the present plan of the whole building 
 (cf. Michaelis, Jb. Arch. Inst, 1902, p. 16 ff). This is what scholars 
 have sought to do with very different and unsatisfactory results, so un- 
 satisfactory that of late there is a tendency on the part of some to deny 
 that any value is to be placed upon the sequence which Pausanias ob- 
 serves in his narrative. Those who believe that the description is some- 
 thing more than a loose statement of the contents of the temple are said 
 to be making assumptions. But the description, taken by itself, seems 
 to be a systematic account, and the burden of proof rests upon those 
 who deny it. The denial is based upon the failure of the account to square 
 with the accepted plan of the interior of the Erechtheum, but such basis is 
 insecure because the interior of the temple has been so completely de- 
 stroyed as not to permit an absolutely certain restoration by means of the 
 evidence of the building alone. There is no sure warrant for saying in 
 the case of this description that Pausanias has confused his notes. 
 
 The traveler has been made to enter the Erechtheum through three 
 different doors. His account, however, is simple and ought not to occasion 
 difficulty. It suggests orderly progression. Before the entrance he found 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 21 
 
 the altar of Zeus'; on entering, three altars and the paintings of the Butadae; 
 then in an inner ( evSov ) room the well and trident-mark ; thereafter fol- 
 lows the account of the objects in the cella of Athena. Then he passed to 
 the Pandroseum. The order in this description is simple and natural, and 
 the moment the theory is advanced of a postponement of certain objects 
 for mention later in other connections, that moment the description ceases 
 to be of value so far as the interior arrangement of the Erechtheum is 
 concerned and the way is opened up to the disposition of the contents 
 of the temple in accord with individual choice. The simplicity and natural- 
 ness of the description is the best guarantee of an orderly progression by 
 Pausanias, and the only guide where the evidence of the building is in- 
 sufficient. 
 
 In his simple, straightforward account, Pausanias gives not the slight- 
 est indication that he left the Erechtheum until he entered the Pandroseum. 
 The present plan of the temple in which east and west cella are separated 
 by a closed wall, compels that assumption. Further, if Pausanias coming 
 from the east entered the Erechtheum by the east door, one is com- 
 pelled to place in the cella of Athena the altar of Poseidon-Erechtheus and 
 the paintings of the Butadae, which did not demand a cella with an orienta- 
 tion east, and then to place the contents of the va'o^ Trji 'Adrjvai including 
 the xoanon in the western cella where they certainly did not belong; or 
 else with Dorpfeld move the museum into the shadowy old Hekatompedon, 
 thus depriving the goddess of all share in the Erechtheum except that the 
 temple was named after her oldest image in the official inscription of the 
 fifth century. 
 
 But neglecting for the moment the objection that Pausanias gives no 
 indication of having left the Erechtheum until he passed to the vab'; 
 liavSpoaov , and granting besides that the old Hekatompedon was still 
 standing, one quickly asks why Pausanias, who took things in order, passed 
 by that temple when he approached from the east. Why did he not visit 
 the celiac which lay at the higher level and then proceed to that at a lower 
 level in the west part of the Erechtheum? The fact that the old temple 
 stood a few paces farther west than the Erechtheum does not help one out 
 of the difficulty. The simple and convenient order would have been: 
 Hekatompedon, Erechtheum, temple or -temenos of Pandrosus. But in- 
 stead one has the unintelligible order illustrated in A. J. A., HI (1899), 
 p. 368. 
 
22 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 If, however, the majority of scholars are right in their belief that 
 Pausanias entered first the west cella of the Erechtheum, then according 
 to the present plan neither the well nor the trident-mark were evSov 
 because the former is placed in the room which is entered directly from 
 the north and south porches (Michaelis. Jb. Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 16). 
 Furtwangler (Masterpieces, p. 435) takes refuge in the theory that Pau- 
 sanias, immediately after mentioning the altar of Zeus Hypatus before the 
 entrance, adds the three others within the cella in order to get one of his 
 favorite antitheses. The result is hopeless confusion. The three altars 
 which Pausanias mentions as being in the first chamber, Furtwangler dis- 
 tributes in two chambers, neither of which is entered directly from either 
 north or south porch, while in the first chamber Cecrops is established 
 whom Pausanias does not mention. An attempt, which must be character- 
 ized as violent, has been made to fit the description of the traveller to the 
 plan of the cella by the assumption (Frazer, Paus., II, 336) that both well 
 and trident7mark were apparently reached from the inner chamber, a 
 sight of the well being afforded to the curious through an opening at the 
 foot of the staircase which led down from the inner chamber into the 
 crypt (cf. Furtwangler, Sitsb. Miin. Akad., 1904, p. 372). But why make 
 Pausanias descend a stairway, for which there is no evidence, to look at 
 indentations in the rock which could be seen from the Porch? Frazer's 
 reason that the passage through the foundation and beneath the floor was 
 for those who wished to examine the indentations closely is exceedingly 
 poor. One can examine the marks from the porch without crawling through 
 the passage, the height of which (1.22 m) shows that it was not intended 
 to be an ordinary approach, as Michaelis {op. cit., p. 19) rightly observes. 
 Petersen's explanation {op. cit., p. 102) that Pausanias postponed the 
 mention of the trident-mark until he saw the ^pea/j inside the temple is 
 simply another arbitrary violation of a clear statement by the traveler 
 which gives every indication of orderly natural progression. 
 
 Notice must be taken at this point of the hole through the floor of the 
 porch close to the wall and at. the left of the door. This hole opens into 
 the passage. Nilson (J.H.S., 1901, p. 328) accepts the assertion made in 
 the UpaKTiica T^9 eVi tou 'EpexdsLov 'E-7nrpoTr^<! (1853) § 25 that the 
 hole is modern, but since there is not the slightest trace of a scar made by 
 a chisel on the surface of the adjacent block, it is certain that the hole was 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 23 
 
 cut before the slab was set in place, i.e. it is part of the underground sys- 
 tem at this place, but no attempt has been made to explain it. 
 
 Yet another difficulty is found in the words SnrXovv 'yap iariv to 
 oiKrj/jia. After mentioning the altars and paintings in the first room, 
 Pausanias passes to the second with the observation that the ot'«??ytia is 
 double, to find there (evBov) a well and the marks {arifia or cr)(^fjtj,a ) of the 
 trident. In other passages in which Pausanias describes double buildings 
 the natural interpretation is that the first chamber is in front, the front 
 determined by the entrance, of the second, because cross-walls in cellae are 
 normally at right angles to the major axis. The north porch at once de- 
 termines that axis in the west cella of the Erechtheum. In Paus. VI, 20, 
 3, the first chamber is noted with the words iv Ta> efiTrpoa-dev, the second 
 with iv jS> iino'i . According to the present plan the chambers of the 
 otKijfjLa 'EpexOeiov are one in front of the other for a person only, who 
 enters by the small door in the west wall. For one entering by either of 
 the other doors, the chambers are side by side. 
 
 A common objection to all theories about the Erechtheum is that they 
 attribute an unintelligible order to the course taken by Pausanias. Those 
 who think he entered the building by the north porch or the porch of the 
 maidens are compelled to believe that he passed by an eastern entrance only 
 to retrace his steps upstairs and enter later the cella of Athena, and that 
 he then descended again to visit the Pandroseum. Those who believe that 
 Pausanias saw the xoanon of Athena in the Hekatompedon are also com- 
 pelled to make Pausanias double on his course and furthermore to strain 
 the meaning of crvvexv'!- The Pandroseum, in which the vab^ IlavBpoaov 
 must have stood is in close connection with the Erechtheum, and not with 
 the terrace of the Hekatompedon which lay higher and was separated still 
 more by a wall which ran west from the porch of the maidens on the 
 foundation for the peristyle of the old temple. Those who believe that a 
 staircase connected the eastern with the lower western cella of the Erech- 
 theum are at a loss to say why Pausanias did not enter the eastern shrine 
 first, and after describing its contents descend to the western and lower 
 cella, and then proceed to the Pandroseum. In short, the present plan of 
 the Erechtheum will agree with the description of Pausanias cum inula 
 peperit. 
 
 The difficulties of the present plan both in the light of the Chandler 
 
24 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 inscription and the description by Pausanias induce one to believe that 
 the interior of the Erechtheum has been wrongly restored and must there- 
 fore be reexamined. 
 
 A Roman foundation has obscured the truth in the temple, namely the 
 foundation which is said to have supported the western of the two interior 
 walls. This foundation, however, lies exactly below the heavy blocks 
 which were inserted by the Romans as the epistyle of a row of piers or 
 columns to support the roof and which served as the successor of the 
 jca/iTTiiXv o-eXt? of Greek times (A. J. A., 1910, p. 291 ). The weathering on 
 the north wall helps to establish the relation of the foundation to the in- 
 serted blocks. This foundation was later used for the wall of the narthex 
 of the church into which the Erechtheum was converted, perhaps as early as 
 the fifth century. The traces of the Greek walls, just east of the north and 
 south doors, show however that, if they belong to a Greek wall which stood 
 on the present foundation, that wall rested not squarely on the foundation 
 but on the eastern side of it. The certain conclusion from these facts is 
 that the foundation was not laid for the Greek wall, whatever the char- 
 acter of the latter may have been. The size of the inserted blocks proves 
 that the Roman work was heavy and demanded a heavy foundation such 
 as exists reaching down to the rock. The traces of the Greek wall how- 
 ever show that it reached up five courses above the orthostates while the 
 presence of the KUfi-n-vXr) ae\i<s above proves that this low wall was only 
 a screen-wall and supported nothing. That the foundation is Roman is 
 confirmed on examination of its character which presents a remarkable 
 contrast with the Greek foundation of the west wall of the building. The 
 bed for the Roman foundation was not carefully prepared; just south of 
 the centre the unevenness of the underlying rock is distinctly noticeable. 
 Quite different is the character of the Greek foundation. The rock was 
 carefully cut to receive it. The courses are evenly laid, the interstices be- 
 tween the blocks small. Neither remark applies to the Roman foundation 
 which is the poorest in the building. Finally, this foundation does not key 
 into those for the north and south walls (Fig. 6). The south foundation 
 appears to key into that for the interior wall, but on examination it will be 
 seen that the poros block in question has been cut back by those who en- 
 larged the cistern. This block originally projected in as far as the poros 
 blocks in the same course but east of the interior wall. If the interior 
 
FiGUKE 6 
 
 View of N. end of W. interior foundation showing 
 
 that it does not key into the foundation 
 
 of the n. wall 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 
 
 27 
 
 foundation had keyed into the foundations of the outside walls its Greek 
 character would have been beyond question. 
 
 The western cella of the Erechtheum was in all probability divided into' 
 two chambers by a wall running east and west (Fig. 7). The chief evi- 
 
 Ar.-. 
 
 Figure 7 
 
 Plan of Erechtheum showing new interior arrangement. Dotted lines from A 
 SHOW simultaneous visibility of windows from the axis of the door 
 
 dence in the building for this is that the west door of the Erechtheum 
 does not stand in the middle of the wall, a peculiarity often remarked 
 (Penrose, The Prmciples of Athenian Architecture, p. 88). The unusual 
 position of a door under a column is structurally objectionable (Michaelis, 
 Jb. Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 18). Had the door been placed in the middle, 
 it would have stood directly under the central intercolumination of the west 
 colonnade. The latest theory (D'Ooge, The Acropolis of Athens, p. 201) 
 is that the position of the door was determined by the structure which abut- 
 ted against the west wall just south of the door. The presence of an 
 adjoining structure is then to be credited with some magic power of at^^ 
 traction which drew the door from its normal position into one structurally 
 objectionable. The unsymmetrical position of the door was doubtless de- 
 
28 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 termined by the interior cross-wall which stood just north of the door and 
 divided the west cella into a north and south chamber of approximately the 
 same size. The door connecting the two very probably lay in the axis of 
 the north and south doors of the temple (Fig. 7), thus very near to the 
 west wall. The distance of the top course which could not have reached 
 above the lintel of the west door was 8>4 feet above the bottom of the 
 orthostates of the west wall. The height of the doors mentioned in the 
 Chandler inscription is 8>4 feet. Of this cross-wall there are no traces of 
 contact with the west wall. It must be noted, however, that the surface of 
 the west wall is at that place badly broken away (Fig. 8). The surface of 
 the orthostate is in part well preserved but orthostates at the place of con- 
 tact with interior walls have nowhere left any indication of such contact — 
 no anathyrosis. This is especially peculiar in the case of the eastern cross- 
 wall where the supposed higher level on the east side would lead one to 
 expect a careful joining with anathyrosis (Fig. 9). Had the north wall 
 been destroyed beyond recovery down to this orthostate, there would have 
 been no evidence now to show that a cross-wall ever was in contact with it. 
 The orthostate next the door in the west wall cannot be cited as evidence 
 against the existence of an interior cross-wall running east and west. The 
 blocks above this orthostate are badly broken away except one just below 
 the lintel which has some original surface preserved. The lintel like the 
 orthostate is a block two courses high and may have the same exemption 
 from any signs of contact, as far as the surface is concerned, with the in- 
 terior qi the wall. It is possible that not a single course of the cross-wall 
 keyed into the west wall because the former was merely a low partition-wall. 
 The top of the lintel in the line of the wall is broken away so that there, as 
 in the case of the blocks below, no evidence of clamps can be expected. 
 Neglecting for a moment the remarkable position of the door, it may be 
 said that the interior surface of the west wall just north of the door is in no 
 condition to give definite evidence pro or con of the existence of this 
 interior cross-wall. The conclusive answer must be found in the simple 
 description of Pausanias to whose text one may now turn (I, 26, 5). The 
 new plan fits perfectly. 
 
 In the first room (ia-eXdovai) Pausanias found the altars of He- 
 phaestus, Poseidon-Erechtheus and Butes, and the paintings of the Butadae. 
 The wall space lighted directly from the west windows was finely adapted 
 
Figure 8 
 View of the N. side of the door in the W. wall 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 
 
 31 
 
 for the paintings. There were only two doors and those at the west ends 
 of the long walls. There could have been an uninterrupted series of 
 paintings, whereas the Trpoa-TOfiialov of the other plan had five doors, and 
 therefore offered less desirable space. With the words SiirXovv yap ianv 
 TO oiKijfia, Pausanias passes to the next room ( evSov ) where he found 
 the well of sea-water. Now the name with which Pausanias introduces his 
 description is significant: eo-rt Se koI oiKri/ia 'Epe'xOeiov Kokovfievov. 
 He named the temple from the part which he entered first and then he says 
 a moment later that this oiKrjfia is double, i.e. the part which he has just 
 entered. Up to this point there is no suggestion of Athena. The SiirXovv 
 oiKT^fia of Erechtheus consisted of two chambers one behind the other 
 with reference to the porch. 
 
 The ^peap in the new plan is in the inner ( evBov ) room of the 
 oiKifiia near the west wall of the temple, where water was accumulated in 
 later times and probably therefore in Greek and Roman times, while there 
 is no indication whatever of a well of any sort in the inner chamber ac- 
 cording to the old plan. At present the cistern in the western part of the 
 temple reaches from north door to south door, but there is evidence to show 
 that originally in Greek times it did not extend so far north. Just inside 
 the north door, the pavement consisted of thin slabs, 0.13 m. thick, which 
 ran in under the heavy blocks below the orthostates of the west wall and 
 fitted into a cutting in the topmost course of the poros foundation. The 
 thinness of the pavement is inconsistent with the theory of a hollow vault of 
 any sort beneath the floor. There must have been a filling of earth for the 
 pavement to rest on. This confirms the theory that the originally smaller 
 place for the accumulation of water within the building was the south-west 
 corner. The drain at the south-west corner of the North Porch which 
 brought water from the direction of the Caryatid Porch both before and 
 after the present Erachtheum was built may have carried excess water from 
 the <j>peap. It is possible that the absence of a proper foundation beneath the 
 threshold of the door in the Caryatid Porch was due to the presence there 
 of a course or courses of stone which surrounded the well and trident- 
 mark. The architect, unable to secure consent to their removal, was com- 
 pelled to build upon them and to raise the door. He placed the threshold 
 above the bottom of the orthostates, and the position of this threshold may 
 have determined the high position of the orthostates of the western wall. 
 Both are placed at the same level. 
 
32 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 In the inner room Pausanias saw the trident-mark, naturally near the 
 <i>p4ap. The first produced the second, according to Apollodorus, III, 14, 2. 
 Pausanias did not see them irpo ttj? eaohov but evhov. There is no authority 
 whatever for identifying the marks in the rock beneath the north porch 
 with those made by the trident of Poseidon, except common consent in 
 recent times. If the trident-mark lay within the Erechtheum what deity 
 made that outside, and beneath the porch, a mark which was beyond ques- 
 tion an object of cult?" "Die Stelle welche Zeus mit seinem Blitze getrofifen 
 hatte, wurde mit einem Puteal umgebenund blieb unter freiem Himmel" 
 ( Dorp f eld, Ath. Mitt., 1903, p. 467). An altar of Zeus Hypatus stood be- 
 fore the entrance. The coincidence of place irpo t^9 eWSou and iv ry irpoa-!- 
 rdaei Ty irpo'i tov QvprnnaTot where, according to the official inscription the 
 altar of the Thyechous stood, outweighs any objection to the ideiitification of 
 the two altars based on difference of name in the two records, ^wimk tov 
 dvrjxov and Ato? /Sa/io? 'TiraTov. Pausanias departs from the official termin- 
 ology of building inscriptions. The "rotunda at Epidaurus was called in the 
 building inscription OviieXr) (cf. Cavvadias, To 'lepov tov 'A.aK\r]'/nov iv 
 'T&inBavp(p, p. 50). Pausanias called it doXo'i. The official nam? for the 
 Erechtheum does not occur in literature nor in inscriptions except in the 
 report of the commissioners: It is not surprising then if Pausanias failed 
 to call the altar 6 ySeo^os tow 0ui?j^of). This name gives not the slightest 
 clue to the god to whom it was erected. The suggestion of Michaelis (Jb. 
 Arch. Inst., 1902, p. 17) that the altar may have been one to Poseidon pro- 
 ceeds from the logical idea to make it that of the god who ig thought to 
 have made the marks in the rock beneath the porch. 
 
 The altar in the north porch was one to Zeus and its presence there 
 suggests the reasonable theory that the marks in the rock below it and the 
 square hole in the roof above are a memorial of the thunderbolt which he 
 hurled at Erechtheus according to Hyginus (Fab., 46). Cf. Petersen, op. 
 cit., p. 72. One cannot say whicli is the earlier tradition, that preserved in 
 Hyginus or that in Euripides (Ion, 281) according to which TrXriyal rpiaCvq^ 
 thrust Erechtheus into a x"'"'!^"- X^°^°f (Furtwangler, Masterpieces, p. 
 436, note 3). There was a tradition that Zeus, at the request of Poseidon, 
 killed Erechtheus with a thunderbolt, a tradition which becomes the more 
 interesting in the light of an inscription found on the Acropolis (Lolling, 
 Ae\. 'Apx-, 1890, p. 144) which proves that an d^arov Ato? Karat/Sa- 
 
Figure 9 
 Looking north in the line of the eastern interior 
 
 CROSS-WALL. A view SHOWING THE ORTHOSTATE WHICH 
 WAS IN CONTACT WITH THE INTERIOR WALL AND THE 
 ROUGH SURFACE (X) OF THE NATIVE ROCK IN THE LINE OF 
 THE LATTER 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 35 
 
 rov existed there. The stone bearing the inscription was found in a 
 mediaeval wall north of the northeast corner of the Parthenon, Three 
 surfaces of the fragment are preserved sljowing that it came from a 
 corner perhaps of a low wall enclosing the a^arov. One side of the block 
 which is Pentelic marble is finely polished. There are no dowel or clamp- 
 holes preserved and it is impossible to recover the dimensions of the original 
 block. The face which bears the inscription of the late fourth century- 
 seems to have been redressed, since chisel marks are evident. The inscrip- 
 tion may then have been recut. It is tentatively suggested that this frag- 
 ment was part of the curb about the opening in the floor of the north porch. 
 
 Zeus hurled a thunderbolt which destroyed the chamber of Semele 
 at Thebes and the place was an a^arov in the time of Pausanias (IX, 12, 4). 
 When Zeus struck Erechtheus with a thunderbolt, the spot on the Acropolis 
 where the lightning struck may likewise have become an a/3aTov. It is in- 
 teresting to note that at Olympia, Pausanias (V, 14, 7) saw the foundations 
 of the house of Oenomaus and two altars, one to Zeus Herkeios which 
 Oenomaus seerhs to have built, the other to Zeus Keraunos erected later, 
 after the thunderbolt had destroyed the house. The persons and palaces of 
 mythical kings appear to have been a favorite mark for the thunderbolt of 
 Zeus. The tradition preserved iii Hyginus is an illustration, and tempts 
 one to seek in the vicinity of the Erechtheum for some record of the 
 thunderbolt. 
 
 And so too does the notice of the scholiast (after ApoUodorus) on 
 Sophocles, Oed. Col., 705, who says that near the Academy there was an 
 altar to Zeus Kataibates who was also called Morios : so-tIv re rov Karai^d- 
 Tov Aloi ^a)/j,bi bv Kal M.6piov KoXovaiv t&v sKel /j,opiS>v irapcL to 
 T^9 'A^jjms iepov iSpvfievojv , That Zeus Kataibates should have been 
 called Mopiov (/j,op{a) points to some relation with Athena and the olive 
 which may have had its origin on the Acropolis. Does this double name 
 simply mean that Zeus "of sleepless eye" used lightning (/caTot/SaT???) to 
 avenge sacrilege which one committed when he violated a sacred olive 
 ( fiopia ) as Miss Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, 
 p, 599, suggests, or is the key to the explanation furnished by a passage in 
 Pausanias (IX, 12, 4) ? Pausanias records the tradition that at the time 
 Zeus hurled the thunderbolt which destroyed Semele and her bridal chamber 
 a log fell from heaven which Polydorus adorned with bronze and called 
 
36 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 Dionysus Cadmus. Perhaps the ancient image of Athena, the xoanon of 
 olive wood, which fell from heaven, fell at the time Zeus smote Erechtheus, 
 just as the wooden image of Dionysus Cadmus fell when Zeus destroyed 
 Semele. If so, then Zeus Kataibates, by bringing to earth a piece of sacred 
 olive ( iiopia ) very naturally acquired the name Zeus Morios. 
 
 What known altar to Zeus in the vicinity of the Erechtheum could have 
 been erected to him in his capacity as KaTai^drrj^ ? There was an altar of 
 Zeus Herkeios under the olive in the Pandroseum. This, however, cannot 
 have served as an altar of Zeus Kataibates because these were two distinct 
 phases of the Zeus cult. Pausanias found near the ruins of the palace of 
 Oenomaus at Olympia an altar to Zeus Herkeios and another to Zeus 
 Keratinos (Kataibates). Before the entrance to the Erechtheum Pausanias 
 found an altar to Zeus Hypatus beside the sacred indentations in the rock 
 which lay beneath an opening in the roof, and this is none other than the 
 altar to Zeus Kataibates. 
 
 The passage which led from these indentations through the foundation 
 into the temple was not intended for the worshipper but for the priest on 
 occasion. Herein lies a possible explanation of the hole which opens into 
 the passage close to the wall east of the main door. It was perhaps a sort 
 of speaking tube for subterranean utterances. Perhaps beneath the floor 
 of the temple the chthonic Erechtheus was invoked and priestly response 
 heard from above through the opening. 
 
 The trident-mark and the well, both destroyed when the mediaeval cis- 
 tern was cut, were situated in the southwest part of the Erechtheum. Thus 
 evidences produced by Poseidon in the dispute over the land were close to 
 the olive tree of Athena which stood in the Pandroseum. The door in the 
 west wall gave ready access from one to the other. 
 
 It has already been remarked that in the description of the Erechtheum, 
 Pausanias gives no indication between the words ia-eXOovaiv (I, 26, s) 
 and a-vvexv'! (I, 27, 2) that he left the building to enter a temple of 
 Athena. The reference to the well and the trident-mark is followed by a 
 compound sentence, the first member ( /teV) of which prepares the way 
 for the more important second member ( Se) which tells of the dyuojaTov 
 
 'AOrjva^ dyaXfia. There is no break here in the continuity of the 
 
 account and no disturbance of an orderly advance if Pausanias found a 
 means of communication between the inner chamber of the SiirXovv oikvij^o, 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 37 
 
 and the vabi Trj<; 'A6rjva<s. Now the traditional intimacy of Athena and 
 Erechtheus would lead one to expect such communication and thus the 
 cella of Athena which gave the official name to the temple would ha,ve a 
 share in the magnificent north portal, the main entrance to the building. 
 The attempts to raise the eastern portico to the dignity of the Tr/aoo-rao-t? r) 
 TTjOo? rov dvprnixaTot are unsatisfactory. Thus Penrose {op. cit., p. 95) : 
 "It may seem a difficulty to explain why the most magnificent portico should 
 lead to a subordinate shrine, but the eastern portico with its six columns, 
 although of smaller diameter, was scarcely if at all of less importance, and 
 the doorway could not have been much inferior in width and height .... 
 The difference of level also obviously gives preeminence to the eastern site." 
 These considerations neither qualify the difficulty nor do they lessen the 
 preeminent magnificence of the north porch. Apart from the demands of 
 the text of Pausanias, there is another point to be observed. From the 
 north porch there was a doorway opening into the Pandroseum. Thus the 
 north porch gave admission to a temenos, but not according to present 
 theory to the eastern cella of Athena. 
 
 In the inner chamber where Pausanias saw the well, he must have found 
 a door, the second of the two mentioned in the Chandler inscription, which 
 opened into the eastern cella (Fig. 7). When he had seen the objects 
 there, he retraced his steps past the well and the mark of the trident, and 
 entered by the small door in the west wall, the Pandroseum, where stood a 
 temple which was o-uve;^^? rqi vaa> ttjs 'AdTjvat. That Pausanias on ap- 
 proaching the Erechtheum should call it 'Epex,6eiov and then on leaving 
 should, call it vabi t?)? 'AOrjvd's is not only quite in keeping with that 
 stylistic tendency which Robert has termed oratio variata {Pausanias als 
 Schriftsteller s.v.) but has a simple and natural explanation. The first 
 name for the temple was that of the western part which he entered first and 
 found to be double; the last name was that of the eastern part which he 
 visited last. The name for the whole was determined by that part which 
 was most prominently in his thought at the time. He gives not the slightest 
 hint that Athena had any share in the temple until he has described the 
 contents of the 8nr\ovv oiKrifia. Properly speaking the western part of 
 the building was the Erechtheum, and the eastern, the temple of Athena; 
 but the name of either half spread to the whole, a natural tendency which 
 gave the Parthenon its name, and readily intelligible in the case of the 
 
38 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 Erechtheum in view of the traditional intimacy of the two divinities re- 
 corded in Homer. When Pausanias speaks of the tholos at Epidaurus a 
 second time, he does not call it by that name, but oiKrjfia irepi^epe}. As 
 for the dog of Philochorus, one may believe simply that the creature passed 
 through the Erechtheum proper into the Pandroseum (Petersen, op. cit., 
 
 P- 143)- 
 
 The theory was at one time put forward that a staircase afforded com- 
 munication between the western cella and the higher eastern cella, but sev- 
 eral considerations establish the fact that they had a common level. The 
 conclusive argument is that there are no cuttings in the rock for the cross- 
 wall between the two celiac, although that rock lay only 1-1.50 m. below 
 the base of the wall. In its rough and sloping surfaces (Fig. 9) there is 
 not a single trace of a bed for a foundation which the supposed heavy 
 cross-wall would demand. The rock betrays no evidences whatever of 
 preparation to receive a foundation. The contention that points of rock 
 were broken off is atsurd. The foundations for the outside walls go down 
 to and rest in such beds, that of the west wall being an illustration. Those 
 who believe that the heavy cross-wall supported roof beams besides serv- 
 ing as a terrace wall for the western cella 3 m. lower than the eastern, 
 seem not to have thought that such a wall would need a well cut bed in 
 the rock. Now the east wall, the thinnest in the building, has a founda- 
 tion which, though it consists of eight courses of heavy poros blocks, rests 
 in deep cuttings in the rock. Under one block of the lowest course, lies a 
 smaller block of poros which also rests in deep cuttings in the rock. Why 
 did not the eastern interior cross-wall likewise have a bed for it cut in the 
 rock, especially since its foundation was so shallow, only two or three 
 courses of poros, and not eight as in the case of the eastern wall? The 
 only bit of outside wall which does not rest in cuttings in the rock is that at 
 the southwest corner, but there the few courses below the lintel of the door 
 rested on an object of cult of some sort which made impossible the normal 
 foundation, while the weight above the lintel rested on the heavy block in 
 the west wall and the firmly founded wall just east of the door. 
 
 The champions of the accepted plan of the Erechtheum must explain a 
 striking inconsistency in construction presented by the two interior cross- 
 walls. The western, a screen-wall (D'Ooge, The Acropolis of Athens, p. 
 202) which reached only five courses above the orthostates and supported 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 39 
 
 no other weight whatever, had a foundation which rests partly in cuttings in 
 the rock, while the eastern interior wall which reached quite to the ceiling, 
 supported the weight of it, besides being of the nature of a terrace wall, had 
 a foundation which rested only on the rough and sloping rocL How is 
 this inconsistency to be explained? 
 
 The inconsistency cannot be avoided. The logical inference from the 
 facts is one which makes Pausanias intelligible. The eastern cross-wall 
 could not have reached to the ceiling except at the ends where the blocks 
 keyed into the side-walls and shared their foundations. The inference that 
 this wall for its entire length must have been as high as the traces on the 
 side walls is altogether unnecessary. Except at the ends this wall was as 
 high as the other partition-wall, and like it supported no weight. The 
 pilasters lessened a span of thirty feet by perhaps two feet and with the 
 outside walls served -to support a heavy cross-beam. Wall-pilasters are 
 not unknown in Greek architecture as the temples of Apollo at Bassae and 
 the Heraeum at Olympia prove (Frazer, op. cit.. Ill, p. 589). 
 
 Pausanias walked into the cella of Athena from that of Erechtheus 
 without ascending a step. Since all the interior chambers of the Erechtheum 
 had the same level as the north portal it is unnecessary to maintain that he 
 should have entered the Athena cella first on coming from the east. In per- 
 fect keeping with the new plan of the interior is the simple sequence of 
 the topographical indications in his description : (i) tt/jo t^? ia-oSov, (2) 
 eaekdovaiv, (3) 'ivhov (SiirXovv yap ia-nv to oiK7]iJ,a), (4) ayianarov ayaXua 
 (cf. 6 vecb? iv <S TO apjfalov ayaXfia), {_$) Ta vaa Se tj)? 'Adrjva^ TlavSpoaov 
 vaoi avve^T^'i. 
 
 But what of the protruding poros foundations of the east and south 
 walls and of the unfinished surface of the north wall which have always 
 readily confirmed the theory of a higher level for the cella of Athena? 
 Certainly these were not visible. They must have been concealed behind 
 marble shelves on north and south and marble shelves and steps on the 
 east (Fig. 7), The builders of the Erechtheum were economical, using the 
 foundations of the peristyle of the Hekatompedon as far as possible and 
 then adding blocks of por6s to complete a foundation for the south wall of 
 their temple. There was no more need for a wall of marble behind the 
 south shelf than there was for a marble floor beneath the pedestal of 
 the statue in the Parthenon. These shelves were convenient for the exhi- 
 
40 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 bition of the many objects deposited in the cella which was a religious mu- 
 seum. The surface of the marble walls is not preserved to a sufficient 
 height to show whether there was any trace of contact with the top of the 
 shelf, just as they can give no positive evidence of a floor at the higher level. 
 
 A peculiar cutting in the orthostate at the south-east corner of the 
 temple should be noted in this connection. The cutting is in the interior 
 angle and is so made that the orthostate could be set at this place on a 
 horizontal surface which ran inward. Was this horizontal surface the 
 floor level? Was the floor of the eastern cella raised one step above the 
 threshold as D'Ooge says (op. cit., p. 207) ? This is unlikely because the 
 floor level would then have been above the base of the orthostates. The 
 horizontal surface was the top of the shelf, for its vertical plane would 
 have courses of the same height as ordinary wall-blocks. There is a 
 Roman block 10 feet long and i J4 feet high which the Christians reused as 
 the base stone of the iconostasis when they converted the Erechtheum into 
 a church. It had a base moulding of some sort which the Christians chis- 
 elled off. This long block probably formed part of the lowest course of 
 the facing of the shelf. The fact that its dimensions are those of the 
 yoyyvXo'i Xido<! adero'i, avrCfJLopot rat? iviKpavirunv /tewos Se/cciTro? v<f)ao'i rpiov 
 inivoSiov (I. G., I, 322,- col. i) causes a suspicion that the Roman block 
 simply replaced a Greek one, which in its position at the base of the wall 
 "corresponded to" the eTrtK/aai/mSe? at the top of it. 
 
 An exanjination of the foundation for the east wall reveals an inter- 
 esting 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 foun- 
 dation (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 Erech- 
 theum. 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. 
 
 There is another serious difficulty in the way of those who believe that 
 
Figure io 
 The N.E. corner of the cella of Athena 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 
 
 43 
 
 the 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 chambeT 
 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 the irpoaraaLi 
 f) -rrpoi rov 6vpa)fj,aT0<; , the main entrance to the temple. 
 
 It is interesting to note some evidence which shows that in the period 
 
44 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 before the Erechtheum was converted into a Christian church there was no 
 diiference 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 pur- 
 pose of this rubble masonry was is uncertain. The substantial and solid 
 character of the masses leads one to believe that they wer6 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 de- 
 termines the front of the building, then the first room is a satisfactory 
 ■n-poaTontalov and lies in front of {"n-po) the *aTo/j,ialov in which was the 
 important object of cult, the ^peap ( o-to/mov ). The following proportion 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 45 
 
 may be set down ; TTjOoVaos : va6<s : : irpoaTOjxialov : '^(tto/xioIov. lipoffTO- 
 /jLialov and*a-roiJ,ialov are conjectured to have been the official names in the 
 fifth century for the two chambers of the SitrXovv oturj/j-a of Pausanias. 
 
 The order followed by the commissioners in their report upon unfinished 
 interior walls was as follows : In the first room entered from the ^tJ/sw^a, 
 the Trpoa-TOfualov, 12 tetrapodies were aKardx(yeara. The phrase ev rp 
 TvpoaTOfiiaCa) favors the theory that more walls than one are meant. Then 
 in the inner chamber 3 tetrapodies of the Trapoo-ra'?,^ 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 wall tt/jos ToyaVaro?. 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., 11,^ 733). 
 The remarkable feature of the inscription is that it mentions three irapa- 
 o-TdBei, first an isolated one, and then a pair of them, one on either side of 
 a door. The single Tra/jao-ra?, 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 
 a irapaaraM on the left, but none on the right. When however he passed 
 into the vah rij? 'A^iji/a? through 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 a Tro/aao-ra? upon his left and also upon his right. The 
 TrajooffTaSe? are interior walls on either side of a door which in the 
 Erechtheum reached up only five courses above the orthostates. The paint- 
 ings 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 the BiirXovv oiKr/iia. 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 the -irpo- 
 araaii ^ 7r/3o? tov dvpatfiaTO';, just as the record of the commissioners in 
 
 ' The origin and the meaning of the term jropoffTrfs is clear. A wapaaTds is that which 
 stands irapi a door or opening, i.e. a jamb. A passage in the inscription which gives 
 specifications for Philon's Arsenal (/. G. H," 1054) is important in this connection. After 
 prescribing the dimensions of the door of the arsenal, the material of the lintel, the 
 inscription adds vapatrridas <7Ti}<ros \teov -irevreKiiiKov k. t. \. The TropaffrdSes are clearly 
 the door jambs which stand wapi the 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. 
 
46 
 
 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 the 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 (reading oZkos for 
 Tolxo'i and keeping in mind the hirkovv oiKrjfia of Pausanias's descrip- 
 tion) : o-iria-eo rov veca Trj<; KaXov/ievrji HoXidSo^ 'A6r]vd<s St7r\oS? 
 01K09 ( TOixo'i ) excov 6vpav, oirov ^v drjcravpo^vXaKiov . The words 
 exfov dvpav suggest that the scholiast wished to distinguish between a 
 SiirXovi oZkos the two parts of which were connected by a door and an- 
 other 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, I. White (Harvard Studies, Vol. VI, p. 39) refers the scholium 
 to the restored west part of the Hekatompedon but does not discuss the 
 meaning of exa>v dvpav, 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 a StTrXoOs oIko?, 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 words vem? KaXovfievrj^ 
 IloXtaSo? 'Adrjvai in the stricter sense, just as Pausanias called the east 
 cella Kao? ttJ? Ilo\idBo<! (I. 27. i), and regarded the StrrXoC? oZkos 
 as lying behind it. The mms ti)? 'Mrjva.'i was 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, accord- 
 ing 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 per- 
 mits a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. For the east wall of the room 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS BUILT 
 
 47 
 
 ill which were the paintings of the Butadae was behind the goddess. Ac- 
 cording to the old plan, Pausanias found the paintings in the western cham- 
 ber of the SiirXovv otKTjfia, 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. no). In the sequence of words 
 in the sentence, iv t^ uKpoiroXei oiriaa ttj? Qeov, the second phrase 
 seems to be a closer definition of the place than is given in the first. Fur- 
 thermore, position was determined by reference to the xoanon. An interior 
 wall was located with reference to it, to Trpos ToyaXfiaTo^. The scholiast 
 on Aristophanes, Equites, 11 69, is interesting in this connection because he 
 shows what part a statue might play in the designation of a temple : Swo 
 ei<Tiv eiri rrp aKpovoKem's 'Adrivat vaol, 6 ti)? IloXiaSos Koi f) 'x^pva-eXe^avTivrj. 
 
 In the light of the new arrangement within the Erechtheum, the refer- 
 ence of Vitruvius (IV, 8, 4) to the temple becomes clearer. Speaking of 
 it and other temples he says : "celiac 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 celiac of Athena and Erech- 
 theus 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 fagade 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 the irpovao'i which Lucian refers to in Pwcaf or, 21 : ivravda. ttov iv ry 
 irpovda t^? TroXtaSo? BiKaffoofiev. 'H lepeia Sidffei fjiuv rh, ^ddpa, ijjuei? Be iv 
 Toaovrm -rrpoa-Kwijaeo/iev ry 6ea>. This interpretation is perfectly consistent 
 with the fundamental contention that the irpoaraaK 17 tt/sos tov BvpcbfiaTo^ 
 determines 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 inscrip- 
 
48 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 tions and 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 
 cei^ituries earlier, namely the contemporary official inscription. Investiga- 
 tors 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. 
 
IV 
 THE ERECHTHEUM AS PLANNED 
 
 The question as to the original plan of the Erechtheum follows natur- 
 ally 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 (Dorpfeld, Aih. Mitt., 1904, p. loi). 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 conceal- 
 ing 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 ta 
 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 3)^ cm. into the west wall of the 
 temple. This suggests crowding and is satisfactorily explained by the con- 
 dition of the foundations below. The foundation of the west wall does not 
 key into that of the north wall (Fig. 1 1 ), 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. Dorpfeld there lies a 
 
CO PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 suggestion 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 Httle 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 fagade, which is Greek with 
 the west fagade, the part of which above the closed wall is Roman (Arx 
 Athenarum, PI. XXV, D, and A. J. A., 1906, PI. 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 be- 
 cause 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 fagade. The stylobate of the western fagade 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 Pandro- 
 sus?) 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 made 
 
FlGURR II 
 
 The interior N.W. corner of the Erechtheum. Modern 
 
 MASONRY under N. END OF W. WALL 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS PLANNED 
 
 53 
 
 it impossible to place a door in that wall which was necessary probably for 
 a reason of cult. 
 
 In Roman times therefore the western windows were placed with care- 
 ful reference to the eastern. Between the columns in each case appeared 
 windows, two in the eastern wall with dooKl^tween, three in the western 
 where a door was impossible. Both facades were surmounted by epistyle, 
 frieze and pediment. The wall below the western colonnade was a substi- 
 tute for the higher ground level of the east side. The Romans who re- 
 paired the wall repaired it with reference to the east front. For them the 
 west fagade was simply a combination of wall with windows, and colonnade. 
 Unless the Greeks had a western facade 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 combinmg 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 fa?ade, 
 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. 
 Ill, 18) that one Comon a carpenter was paid a sum of 40 dr. for "fencing" 
 (Sia^dpxcavTi) four intercolumniations on the wall toward the Pandroseum : 
 hia^dp')(aavTi ra /jL€TaKc6via renapa ovza ra tt^o? to HavBpoaeto. 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 ex- 
 posed 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 facade. 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 a 
 
54 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 Roman 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 Necropole Royale a Sidon, p. 241). 
 The west faqade 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- Dorpfeld has maintained. The east and west facades 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 facades. 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, col- 
 umns 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 com- 
 pletely 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 fagades 
 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 fagade were to have been 
 so. The curtailment of the plan which compelled the architect to place a 
 compressed west fagade 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 interpre- 
 tation of the unusual construction at the upper south-west corner of the 
 
THE ERECHTHEUM AS PLANNED 55 
 
 temple {A. J. A., 1908, p. 191, fig. 2, and p. 194, fig. 6; 1910, p. 297, 
 %• 3)- There the south wall was reduced to one half of its regular thick- 
 ness, 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 south- 
 ern as well as the northern intercolumniation of the west wall but he was 
 prevented, apparently for some religious reason. Now it seems very prob- 
 able 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 meto- 
 pon project into the building? Was it coextensive in width as well as in 
 height with the opening? Tlje^distance which the metopon projected into 
 the building is not cer-tairily 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, de- 
 mands 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 fagade 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 founda- 
 tions. The idea, in short, is simply this. Just as when the architect was 
 not allowed to place the west facade 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 
 fagade, he withdrew still farther back and built a substitute at the line 
 
56 PROBLEMS IN PERICLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 allowed. The extra weight thus produced was partly responsible for the 
 thinning of the insecurely founded south wall. 
 
 It is Prof. Dorpfeld's theory that the Cecropium compelled the architect 
 to place the present west wall i m. east of the line at which it was intended 
 in the original plan to stand (Ath. Mitt., 1904, p. 105). He therefore re- 
 gards that wall as an interior one of the original symmetrical temple. The 
 theory here advanced is that the west wall is the original west facade com- 
 pressed 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 refer- 
 ence 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 Braufonian 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 conserva- 
 tism. The form of the present, west wall is as much like the origirially 
 planned west facade as the architect could make it. East and west facades 
 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 facade of an 
 originally symmetrically planned Erechtheum, it is desirable to inquire 
 Tvhether 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 the thalassa and 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-Erech- 
 theus, 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 symmetri- 
 cal temple (Fig. 12). 
 
 Within the original Erechtheum at the east end marked off by a parti- 
 tion-wall was to be the shrine of Athena Polias. The western chamber of 
 
THE. ERECHTHEUM AS PLANNED 
 
 57 
 
 . .\ 
 
 Figure 12 
 The original plan of the Erechtheum. 
 
 Poseidon-Erechtheus, the exact counterpart of the eastern> was to receive 
 the altars and paintings,. Thfe intervening central chamber of proportions in 
 harmony with those of the north porch was to contain the thalassa and the 
 sacred olive, which would require that the temple be in part hypaethral. Fyrt-i 
 wangler (Sitzb. Mun. Akad., 1904, p. 371) rightly indeed objects to Porp- 
 f eld'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 mag- 
 nificent 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 cjoors 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. 'J'heir completion was rendered unnecessary when the 
 builders decided tQ pjit in the KainrvXi} aeXii. 
 
 When this original plan had tP h? 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 ( ia-e\0oiai ) were placed the three altars and on the walls, the 
 paintings of the Butadae. In the inner cella ( evSov ) were the trident^- 
 mark and the thalassa. It is perfectly clear why Pausanias found no door 
 
rg PROBLEMS IN PERIGLEAN BUILDINGS 
 
 leading from the first chamber of the SiirXovv otKij/ua into the vao<i tt}? 
 'A9riva^. 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 par- 
 tition-wall, while the celiac of Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus were not,' 
 to be in immediate connection. These relations were preserved in the. cur- 
 tailed plan. The meaning of the door in the west wall is also simple. In the 
 , original plan the sacred olive tree and the ihalassa were 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 w:all 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 both thalassa and 
 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 ^agade in hiodified 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 the fi4v and he of 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.