Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/426

402 ARCHITECTURE [GRECIAN others inhabited by Celtic tribes. Professor Heeren, who affixes dates to the various migrations, expressly says that the Pelasgi were of Asiatic origin. " Their first arrival in the Peloponnesus was under Inachus, about 1800 B.C., and according to their own traditions," he says, " they made their first appearance in this quarter as uncultivated savages. They must, however, at an early period have made some progress towards civilisation, since the most ancient states, Argos and Sicyon, owed their origin to them ; and to them, perhaps with great probability, are attributed the remains of those most ancient monuments generally termed Cyclopic." He adds, that the Hellenes, a people of Asiatic origin also, expelled the Pelasgi from almost every part of Greece, about 300 years after their first occupation of it ; the latter keeping their footing only in Arcadia and in the land of Dodona, whilst some of them migrated to Italy, and others to Crete and various islands. The arrival of the Egyptian and Phoenician colonies in Greece, Professor Heeren thinks, was between 1600 and 1400 B.C. The most ancient specimen of Cyclopic walling is found at Tiryns, near Mycense. It is is composed of huge masses of rock roughly hewn and piled up to gether, with the inter stices at the angles filled up by small stones, but without mortar or ce- inent of any kind. The next species is in stones of various sizes also, shaped polygonally, and fitted with nicety one to another, but not laid in courses. Specimens of this are found lulis and Delphi, well as at the places already mentioned, in Greece, and in various parts of Italy, particularly at Cossa, a town of the VolscL This also was constructed without mortar. The mode of building walls, which took the place of that, is not called Cyclopean ; it is in parallel courses of rect angular stones, of unequal size, but of the same height. This was, however, often used in combination with the polygonal, as in one very beautiful specimen at Rham- nus. The parallel masonry is common in the Phocian cities, and in some parts of Boeotia and Argolis. To that succeeded the mode most common in, and which was chiefly confined to, Attica. It consists of horizontal courses of masonry, not always of the same height, but composed of rectangular stones. The oldest existing structure in Greece of regular form is of far superior construction to the Cyclopean walling, and must be referred to early colo nists. It is at Mycense, and consists of two sub- t erranean chambers, one much larger than the other. The outer and larger one is circular, and at Fia. 42. Wall at Tiryns, Greece; from Waring s Stone Monuments. as Fid. 43. Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae ; section. From Waring s Stone Monuments. is entered by a huge doorway at the end of a long avenue of colossal walls, built in nearly parallel courses of rect- engular stones, roughly hewn, however, and laid without mortar. Its external effect is that of an excavation, though the structure of the front is evident ; and inter nally it assumes the form of an immense lime-kiln; its vertical section being of a conical form, with nearly para bolic curves, like a pointed arch. The construction of this edifice was thought to afford clear evidence that the Greeks were acquainted with the properties of the arch; but in the most material point this was destroyed on finding that it consisted of parallel projecting courses of stone in horizontal layers, in the manner called by our workmen battering, or perhaps more correctly, cor belling. It proves, however, that its architect understood the principle of the arch in its horizontal position ; for Mr Cockerell discovered, by excavations above it, that the diminishing rings of which the dome is composed were complete in themselves for withstanding outward pressure ; the joints of the stones being partly wrought radiating, and partly rendered so by wedges of small stones driven tightly into them behind. The apex is formed, not by a key-stone, for the construction does not admit of that, but by a covering stone, which is merely laid on the course immediately below it. It may be added, that internally the lower projecting angles of the stones are worked off to follow the general outline. Though this is the largest and most perfect, its internal diameter at the base being 48 ft. 6 in., and its height from the floor to the covering stone 45 feet, yet edifices exhibiting similar structure are found in many other places in Greece itself, in Egypt, in Sicily, and in Italy. They all, however, tend to prove, that the principle of the construction of the vertical arch was unknown at the time of their erection in all those countries; and their erection is evidently of the most remote antiquity. But neither could the mechanical powers have been unknown to their constructors. In the edifice which we have described, and which is thought by some to be the treasury of Atreus, or the tomb of his son Agamemnon, mentioned by Pausanias as existing among the ruins of Mycense in his time, the inner lintel of the doorway is 27 feet in length, 16 feet deep, and nearly 4 feet thick, weighing, it is computed, up wards of 130 tons; and the lintel of the Gate of the Lions in the Acropolis of the same city, is, from its immense magnitude, also strongly illustrative of the great mechanical skill of the people of those times. As no nation has ever equalled the Egyptians in the extent and magnitude of their architectural monuments, neither have the Greeks been surpassed in the exquisite beauty of form and proportion, in the extreme simplicity and perfect harmony, which pervade every part of their structures. Unfortunately these monuments are known to us only by their ruins, for there is not a Grecian building remaining in a perfect state. In Greece proper, at least, this was not so until a comparatively recent date, viz., that of the war between the Venetians and Turks. The Par thenon itself was nearly perfect until that time, when it was shattered by an explosion of gunpowder (1687). First in importance in Grecian architecture is the use of the three orders, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, with the peculiar mouldings, &c., connected with each. The Doric and Ionic columns, rudely drawn, appear on the early Etruscan or Greek vases. They are very slender, with large projecting capitals and with entablatures, which indicate pretty clearly copies from a construction of wood. Buildings, much as these, and all of wood, are described by Sir 0. Fellows as still being constructed in Lycia. That columns of wood were used in the ancient temples of Greece we know from such notices as we have, e.g., of an old wooden column which was preserved in the temple of Juno at Olympia, as having been one of those of a former

temple. But a doubt is thrown on the theory that in