northeast corner the peculiar terrain veils the unusual juncture. Here the difference would stand out boldly. A person looking at the building from the northwest would see to his right a lofty podium surmounted by colonnade, entablature, and pediment, while to his left his eye would drop abruptly to the foot of a plain wall at the level of his feet, an unprecedented relationship. Without the impossible fill the contrast would be still more marked. The three rooms between the "opisthodom" and "die cella für die Polias" (N, R, S in Fig. 1 above) Dörpfeld calls the "Pandroseion" the "Parastasis," and the "Prostomiaion"; this nomenclature is dubious, but need not now be discussed. In the first of the three rooms, of necessity, he places the sacred olivetree; of course this would preclude the existence of a floor. In the third room, he thinks, was the well; this room, too, would have no floor. The middle room was entered from the north and south doors; it must have had a floor. In passing, it may be noted that this floor would be distinctly higher than the levels of the adjacent rooms and, on the sides, especially to the east, could be reached only by steps, which Dörpfeld omits. That the high walls on all sides of the olive-tree might interfere with its growth Dörpfeld evidently considers of no moment, but the oversight is not negligible. The wall to the west, only four or five meters from the tree, would rise a dozen meters above its roots. To the east a similar wall would stand from two or three to, at most, fourteen or fifteen meters away. Roughly estimated, the entire tree would receive the direct rays of the sun not more than four and, perhaps, less than two hours a day. It might also be interesting to know how widespread the tree's branches were and whether an aged olive-tree, growing as it normally would, could find space at all within so contracted quarters. Here enters a nice horticultural problem in which an archaeologist must not meddle! In order to make consistent his theory of an hypaethral Pandroseum, Dörpfeld is driven to a still more remarkable doctrine, namely, that the other two rooms of this series were also hypaethral, and furthermore, that the two west rooms of the present building had no roof. This is pure assumption. No hint of such a construction is to be found in the side-walls. What is more, the theory disregards the almost certain restoration of the 1 Cf. Judeich, op. cit. p. 246. ceiling of these rooms made on the basis of the building inscriptions, not to speak of the extraordinary phenomenon of a freestanding west wall, with windows or gratings, columns, and pediment, but with no roof behind the pediment! It is also difficult to surmise the purpose of screen-walls two feet thick dividing the rooms, if the space were hypaethral. The matter of drainage, too, would introduce interesting problems. But, since the question is not primarily related to the present inquiry, its discussion may be omitted. If we are now ready to grant that the building might have been extended according to the alleged plan, how long would it have been? Dörpfeld makes the length wholly dependent upon certain relations of the internal measurements of the present building. The distance from the central axis of the east colonnade to the east face of the east cross-wall is 30 Attic feet; from the same face of the east cross-wall to the east face of the west cross-wall the distance is figured as 20 feet; from the same face of the west cross-wall to the central axis of the north and south doors, 10 feet: 30+20+10=60. Reverse the figures, he says, and you have the corresponding dimensions for the west half of the supposed building: 10+20+30=60. The conclusion is strange enough. In the first place, we must find a parallel for such a correlation in existing Greek architecture. Certainly it does not obtain in Athenian buildings, not even in the "Old Temple," for which the Erechtheum was to be a substitute. So far as the concatenation of figures is concerned, one might go a step further. From the axis of the north and south doors to the east face of the present west wall the distance is 5 feet. Now the series will be: 30+20+10+5; ergo, the original plan must have placed the west wall where it is. Or, the distance from the axis of the doors to the west face of a hypothetical west wall of the usual thickness and in line with the southwest anta of the North Porch would be 15 feet; ergo, the architect intended to build the west wall at this new point. Would he had done so! Truth is, the series is specious, and it loses all measure of validity if the figures be inaccurate. According to the most convincing division of the west half of the building the rooms were really 19 and 12 feet in length 1 Hill, 'Structural Notes on the Erechtheum,' A.J.A. XIV, 1910, pp. 291-297. 2 Measurements based on Stevens's excellent plan in A.J.A., X, 1906, p. 48, fig. 1. from east to west.1 Counting the walls two feet thick, the series now becomes 30+21+9, or, if we measure the rooms alone, 22+21+9. But if one measures from the axis of the east colonnade, why not also from the axis of the cross-walls? Whereupon the figures become 31+20+9, or better 31+21+8. Or, let us measure the rooms alone, and the series will be 22+20+10, or, 23+21+8. Juggle the figures as you will, in any event the magic of the tens vanishes, and with the tens falls the theory. In the face of the objections which have been suggested it seems impossible to maintain the theory of the "original plan" which Dörpfeld offers. To be sure, in his recent article he insists that the antagonisms which were met caused the architect to change his plan before the building was begun.2 This does not obviate the difficulties, but augments them. If an architect so constructs his building that to alter it in harmony with an assumed plan demands the destruction of an extensive portion of what he builds, we shall find it hard to believe without corroborating literary evidence that the suggested plan was ever in his mind; divination alone would suffice to discover his thought. If, again, we find the suggested plan virtually impossible of construction on accepted principles, the objections to it become insuperable. What the architect did, we have. We may cherish suspicion and doubt, but no archaeological proof of a different plan is tenable except in the presence of such telltale tokens of future intention as Dr. Dörpfeld so cleverly disclosed in the Propylaea. Of such intention in the case of the Erechtheum he has not adduced any positive evidence. So far as we can determine, then, the original plan of the Erechtheum was the one upon which the building was actually constructed. Its complexities may never be fully resolved. One must freely admit that the construction of the west end is obscure. Here the architect must have been constrained on every hand. The old temple of Pandrosus stood in his way, and near by rose the sacred olive-tree, its branches overspreading the altar of Zeus Herceius. Along the north and west sides of the precinct, known generally as the Pandroseum and perhaps containing other venerated objects, ran a high wall, which enclosed the area. From the outset the architect and his mentors must have known that this precinct was inviolable. The nature of the 1 Hill, op. cit. p. 295 and fig. 2. 1 2 Op. cit. p. 14. sacred objects-the temple, the tree, etc.-shows that they could not be covered. Obviously nothing could be done but to make the best of a difficult situation. The temple of Pandrosus was joined by the architect to his new building (ovvexns, Paus. I, 27, 2), probably to the south of the west door, where the retracted foundation and unfinished wall above it suggest that the space was hidden. The west door was removed to one side, in order to provide access between the old and new temples. A large block spanned the opening which must be left under the southwest corner. The North Porch was widened so as to engage the north wall of the precinct and to accommodate a side door from the Porch into the Pandroseum. We must not forget that in ancient times an observer looking at the Erechtheum from the west or southwest enjoyed a different aspect of it from the one which we have today. Westward the precinct wall rose high enough to conceal nearly all of the west end of the building below the columns. Along the "Old Temple' terrace stretched a parapet at least as high as the feet of the Maidens of the South Porch, and the olive-tree also shut out a part of the view. Furthermore, it is not unlikely that some other structure possibly of wood, like the gratings between the west 1 Cf. Ath. Mitt. II, 1877, pp. 31 ff. columns, but perhaps belonging to the structure which reached under the corner of the building-abutted against the corner and also acted as a screen; certainly some elevated object had at least a visual connection with the "metopon" within the building at this corner, for the "metopon" and its adjuncts, including the open intercolumniation, were made for a purpose more definite than merely to lighten the wall. Under the circumstances, therefore, the architect's handling of his difficult task becomes quite irreproachable (cf. Fig. 4). UNIVERSITY OF Iowa, IOWA CITY. CHARLES HEALD WELLER. |