Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/211

This page needs to be proofread.

THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. I9S interesting to observe that " under the mighty dentil course the frieze shrinks to almost an unimportant band of decoration." Including the mouldings along the margins it is only about 2.8 deep. The cymatium alone must be fully half as deep, it is in short lengths of about 4 feet, carved with a lion's head in the middle of each, but very poor and dull. The whole entablature was about 10 feet deep. Diameter of columns was c. 4.7. The bases were carved after the model of Miletus.* The Germans date this work as built in fourteen years, from 221 B.C. In the English account of Teos we read, "It seems probable, as Dr Hirschfeld suggests [from the inscrip- tions], that the temple, of which Hermogenes was the archi- tect, was planned if not completed between B.C. 193 and 133. On the other hand the temple may have been restored or rebuilt in Roman times." Another Ionic temple, the Smintheium, excavated and described by Pullan, may be briefly mentioned here as one of the most elegant later works. Its date has never been accurately settled. One of the most definite criteria is a comparison of the capitals with those of the Ptolemaion at Samothrace made by O. Puchstein in his work on the Ionic capital, Figs. 34, 35. Both have an almost identical scroll ornament on the cushion of the volute, and both must be of about the same age. The Choragic Monuments of Athens. Of the famous monument of Lysikrates our Museum pos- sesses only casts, but casts which are most valuable records, as they were taken more than a century ago, when the sculptures were in a much better state. In the Elgin Room is the frieze, and in the basement one of the Corinthian capitals. There are also many valuable drawings in the Greek and Roman Department, and with the Stuart Papers in the MSS. Room. The monu- ment is known, from an inscription which it bore, to have been erected in 335. This elegant little Corinthian structure is too well known to need description. Two or three points only may

  • The great sculptured altar was found to the west of the temple : cf.

Ephesus ; also, I think, Samos. Q