Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/126

Religious Architecturb:. 97 The scene where Zeus unites himself in holy matrimony (Upas yoifjLos) with Hera, which in the //tad occurs on Mount Ida, was placed by local tradition on the Ochcean heights.^ There was doubtless a day about midsummer, when all the folk from the country-side and the Attic coast hard by were gathered together on the mountain top, to hold a general assembly {panegyrid) in honour of the august couple, even as the modern Greeks pay their regards to the Panaghia, or some saint of their calendar, by an al fresco festival. We may assume that at a given time, to endow the meeting with greater brilliancy, the Karystians decided to build a temple on the small plateau parting the two terminal rocks of Ocha, where no structure wherein a statue might be lodged had yet appeared ; a rustic altar formed of unhewn blocks or clods of turf being the only visible sign of a sacred character. With the pliability to which Grecian art bears ample witness, the architect entrusted with the undertaking suited his work to the very peculiar conditions in which it had to be carried out. What was the good of building porticoes that could not be seen at a distance ? For the sanctuary, be it remembered, is invisible until you come upon it at the last turn of the winding path. Pillars, moreover, in a position liable to be swept by every wind that blows, could not long have kept their erect position. Delicate ornament would soon have been eaten by damp arising from snow, which remains for months on the ground. What was wanted here was a building that should combine, with the solidity of the rock against which it leant, a surface whereon Boreas might beat in vain. That the builder satisfactorily solved the problem is proved by the condition of the oblong hall, which is whole ; the huge covering slabs, set up in such a way as to form a four-fold sloping roof, have not been impaired or given way under the weight of the wintry snows of thousands of years. For my part, I cannot see the reason why this temple should not be placed in the eighth or seventh century B.C., when Euboea, which had grown rich by agriculture and a flourishing industry, was sending out the surplus of its population, together with the Greek language and Greek arts, to Trinacria, Italy, and the peninsula calling itself Chalcidica, in remembrance of Chalcis, the mother-country. The question can only be decided one way ^ Stephanus Byzantinus. VOL. II. II