A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayFergusson, James
History
A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- History
Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the
means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem
to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of
temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are
to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one
city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel
and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the
first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell
and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation
of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with
the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great
octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time
of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It
measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any
temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these
dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at
that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority,
however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself,
prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the
real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a
secondary illustration.
At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose
age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example,
differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of the age.
Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very
nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to.
Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480,
and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was
destroyed by the Carthaginians.
At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of
this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect
state.
Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples
after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging
probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and
very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater
part of its internal columnar arrangement.
The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in
detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of
which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars,
supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form,
is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to
deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.
IONIC TEMPLES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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