Greece.— About 1100 s.c. the iEgean civili zation succumbed to the age of iron, and on its ruins developed historic Greece. The ex perimental period closed with the victory over the Persians, 479 s.c., which established a con sciousness of power that found its highest ex pression in the presentation of civic and re ligious ideals. This abstract conception was translated through the medium of the arts into terms intelligible to the mass of the people. The real secret of the perfection of Greek architecture is to be found in the fact that to the Greek mind religion and life were indis solubly interwoven. Their architecture was en tirely a public architecture and the nucleus of this was the temple. Their early itinerary ex istence was filled with warlike struggle and religious worship. The shrine of beneficent deity served as the depository for their wealth and battle trophies. It was natural, therefore, in the development of the race, to base their subsequent public types upon those evolved in the perfection of the temple, a form that in each detail expressed the highest aesthetic and utili tarian value, effectually representing, in a con crete way, the Hellenic ideal of power. The earliest temples were mere rectangular enclos ures devoid of ornament and without architec tural pretense; selected because of the existence of some natural phenomenon, which appeared to indicate the presence of the gods or because the site had from primeval times been the place of worship of personifications of the forces of nature. In the archaic temple of Apollo, at Delos, there are two important parts, the cella and the space about the cella used for the performance of certain rites. These two elements that appear in this pre historic example were retained by the builders of all Greek temples in more or less modified form. In no other place in Greece has an original primitive sanctuary been preserved. In the less sacred localities, the early cellas,.we may suppose, were rudely constructed of timber. The first departure from the simple cella was the addition of an entrance porch. In front of and between the projecting side walls were placed piers or columns, similar to the scheme used at Beni Hassan in Egypt. This plan was the natural outcome of a more complex liturgy. There is every reason to believe that Doric architecture was the natural outcome of the problem of adapting the primitive wood superstructure, translated into stone, to the exigencies of a design in which columns were used for a porch in front of the temple. In course of time the idea of entirely surrounding the temple with columns suggested itself. The natural inference is that the peristyle en tirely surrounding the edifice simply continued the tradition of the sacred area which originally surrounded the primitive temples. The great temples of Greece with few exceptions were designed in the Doric style, the elements of that order being best adapted to produce the effect of monumental equipoise aesthetic concord. For the examples illustrating the experimental phases of the Doric style one must look to the archaic temples of Magna Gracia and Sicily, for the temples erected in Greece proper, during the 6th century itc., have dis appeared; in many cases, possibly along with the Athena temple on the Acropolis, they were destroyed by the Persians; in the enthusiasm after Salamis the archaic edifices were felt to be unworthy of the gods who helped the Greeks to glorious victory, and they were replaced with more pretentious monuments. The north ern temple of Selinus, 610-590 B.C., is heavy in detail and lacks the evident refine ments of the works of later periods. The ideal of beauty was intimately associated with the religion of the Greeks and it was the constant effort of her artists to achieve a perfection of form and proportion. It follows' that each shrine that was erected presented an oppor tunity to overcome any defects in composition that had become apparent in an earlier edifice. Thus each part of the architectural mass was carefully studied, the purpose being to produce an effect of absolute unity upon the observer. The transitional period (500-460 Lc.) exhibits in the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Aphaa temple on the island of /Egina, a great advance in harmony of proportion and delicacy of detail. Sicilian temples of Segesta at Agrigentum and upon the acropolis and eastern plateau of Selinus, offer particularly striking contrasts to the archaic types. The final solution of the Per ipteral temple arrangement was achieved during the Periclean era (460-400 a.c.) in the Parthe non (438 s.c.), the shrine of Athena Parthenos, the world's architectural masterpiece. In addi tion to the Parthenon the two great monuments of this age of Greek architecture were the Propylaea, the monumental gateway to the Acropolis of Athens, and the temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Phigalea (Bassae) ; in the former many of the Parthenon refinements appear, but the latter, although attributed to Ictinius, the architect of the Parthenon, was wholly devoid of the wonderful subtleties of the Attic master piece. The Greek Ionic style, developed under the influence of Asiatic types, was not generally used in Greece until late in the 5th century when the • Naval Confederacy brought Asia Minor and Continental Greece into relations. The style was universal in Ionic and ilEolian territory, there being but a single Doric temple in Asia Minor. During the period of Pericles the Ionic order was used in the temple of Nike Apteros and the Erechtheion and the interior of the Propylaea on the Acropolis, Athens. The desire to simplify the execution of the various elements of the Doric style and reduce the time and cost of execution, led, during the Alex andrian (400-300. a.c.) and Decadent (300 100 B.C.) eras, to various debasements. Straight lines and geometric curves replaced the delicate refinements of the Periclean period. The capital from the portico of Philip 360 B.C., upon the Island of Delos, illustrates the dry and characterless ap pearance of the late Doric style. During the Periclean age a capital form of foreign origin made its appearance. On account of its florid gorgeousness of detail the innovation was called Corinthian. The type in a marked manner was an index to the national spirit of the period succeeding the Peloponnesian wars. The individual had asserted himself — no longer was the state and its glories uppermost in the minds of men. The pursuit of wealth, luxury and pleasure, caused the change in character and art and reflected the new conditions in the more sensuous styles of the Ionic and Corin thian. The Corinthian form never achieved the distinctiveness of an independent order in Greece. It was throughout a foreign element engrafted upon the Ionic style. It was only in Roman times that a Corinthian canon or rule was established. The Choragic monument of Lysicrates, at Athens, erected (325 a.c.) by Lysicrates, exhibits the possibilities of the Greek Corinthian style. While secular monuments propylaea, stow, theatres, and odeons were constructed with architectural care and embellished with elaborate detail, little import ance was given to domestic architecture and our knowledge of the Greek houses is prin cipally derived from description. In general arrangement the domiciles must have resembled the houses of Pompeii.
The situation at Rome was partic ularly advantageous for its work as an or ganizer. Her citizens had a special aptitude for government, but had neither the time nor in clination to evolve a new decorative style. Rome was adjoined by nations the value of whose art is still evidenced by remains of great monumental and engineering interest. The southern portion of Magna Grecia and Sicily was rich in examples of the Greek columnar styles erected by the Doric colonists who settled these districts during the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. To the north were the Etrus cans, a people of Turanian origin, who mi grated, according to conjecture, from Asia in the 13th century s.c. The the
remotest antiquity possessed knowledge of the arch and simple vault construction. In their rectangular and circular temples we find the origins of the religions types of the Roman Empire. In the history of art, Roman archi tecture is of the greatest importance, because it is the fountain head out of which the styles of the Early Christian, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern eras were developed. It forms the connecting link between the practise of subsequent ages and the experimentations and perfections of the various peoples with whom the Romans came into contact. It must not be thought that Rome served as an artistic clearing house for the early arts and was wholly devoid of originality. As inventors they contributed to the resources of the designer the groined vault and dome, derivatives of the arch which revolutionized the science of planning, making possible the substitution of vast open interiors for the column encumbered halls of Egypt and the narrow structures of Greece, for in all of these earlier constructions the unobstructed areas were limited by the restriction of the lintel. The Etruscans employed the arch principle in the construction of barrelled vaults (a con tinuous arch roofing the space between parallel walls). The preservation of the Eternal City is due to a vaulted work of this kind. The Great Sewer, by which name the Cloaca Maxima is known, was built by the Etruscan tyrant, Tarquinius Superbus (500 n.c.). Symmetry was the dominant law of Roman composition, and in its employment the design was certain to achieve results that everyone could understand. Horizontal dual symmetry has an esthetic value in that designs laid out in deference to its laws make an immediate appeal to all people. To the Roman, with his ideas of or ganization, simple symmetry was the method of portraying his racial characteristic.
Architecturally, the most important vaulted building was the Pantheon built by Hadrian between the years 117-138 .a.u. The study of this monument inspired in the Florentine renais sance architect, Brunelleschi, the idea which he executed in the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore of Florence. With the Romans, the building of a great monument com prised two distinct operations, first, the fabri cation of the ossature or core, and secondly, the envelope or decoration which was as independent of the construction as cloth ing is independent of the man. The necessity of rapid building and the availability of numerous unskilled laborers, drawn from the population of slaves and soldiers, rendered essential the developinent of a new con structive process. The solution of the prob lem was found in the use of concrete, not only for the walls, but also for the vaults and domes of their innumerable architectural undertakings. Great quantities of lime and cement rock are found in Italy, so that concrete of a fine grade was possible with a minimum of labor and cost. Skilled engineers would carefully plot out the lines of the foundations and walls and test the bearing power of the ground upon which the great vault supports were to stand. Hundreds of unskilled work men excavated for the foundations and mixed the ingredients for the concrete. Chosen artisans laid up rough brick wall faces; the space between them was filled with concrete as fast as the faces were carried up. Then in a short time, the supporting walls would be raised to the height where the vaults were to com mence. Temporary centres, or forms of wood, were then erected upon which the laborers moulded vaults. At times, in order to obviate the labor and expense of enormous timber cen tering, a light slat centre was used, upon which a vault of thin tiles set in hydraulic cement was laid. Upon this shell the concrete was heaped to the required thickness, rarely less than 6 feet over the thinest part. When the core of the monument was thus completed the task of decorating it was undertaken. Artists and precious materials were commandeered without regard to cost. The vaulted ceilings were embellished with moulded stock, lavishly painted and gilded, and the roof walls were covered with marble veneering, columns and entablatures. The decorative procedure of enveloping their arcuated masonry masses with columns and their accompanying acces sories confronted the Roman architects with the problems of harmonizing in the same design the conflicting forms of the lintels and the arch. In the older arts, where the two constructive principles were used to gether, the arch had been placed above the lintel to relieve that weaker member from the weight of the superimposed mass (entrance to Pyramid of Cheops, Egypt). In the Im perial system the orders were introduced merely as ornamental features without constructive functions and the salient horizontal lines of the entablatures were designed to mark the division of the stories or the place of springing of great vaults. The columnar forms engaged to the masonry mass between the arches were in troduced to give apparent support to the en tablature. This arrangement inverted the position of the lintel and the arch as hitherto used, placing the weaker member above the stronger, and has been criticised as a repre hensible departure from structural propriety. The contention is not valid, however, for two obvious reasons; first, engaged columns neces sitated an overhanging entablature whose pro jection beyond the face of the arch masonry indicated very clearly its introduction as an applied and not a structural feature, and secondly, through the contrast of the straight lines of the uOrder° with the curves of the arches a pleasing variety was obtained, the popular value of which has been attested by the adoption and use of the Roman Arcade scheme in all subsequent styles even to our day. The columnar forms, as placed by the Romans, ful filled, too, an aesthetic function in that they emphasized the constructional divisions and elements of the building and gave to the monu ments a sparkle and play of light and shadow that added greatly to their appearance. The Romans being an essentially commercial people and their chief interests directed to the exten sion of their power, religious observations and its accompanying architecture were relegated to a subordinate place. Great halls for the trans action of business and the dispensing of justice assumed a far more important position. Lux ury and the desire upon the part of the rulers to popularize their regimes necessitated the erection of fora, amphitheatres, baths, palaces, triumphal arches and a host of constructions such as aqueducts, roads, bridges, etc. The temples were of two types, rectangular and circular. The plans of both classes were of Etruscan origin. The rectangular shrine comprised of a deep porch led to the cella in which the statue of the deity was placed. Monumental stairways approached the porch. The circular temple plan achieved its most monumental results in Rome itself, although throughout the Latin world many minor mon uments of this class were built. With the development of vaulting it was possible to greatly enlarge this type of structure until finally the imposing rotunda of the Pantheon was produced. The Roman basilica was a form adapted from the Greek royal house for the transaction of judicial and commercial business. Oblong in shape, it consisted of a broad and lofty central nave separated from double or single side aisles by colonnades. The roof of the nave was carried above the level of that of the side aisle forming a clere-story, which was pierced with windows. To the time of Constantine these structures were covered with wooden roofs, and it was that Emperor who completed the edifice commenced by Maxentius who first endowed the Basilica with a vaulted, fireproof covering. These basilicas are of especial importance because of the con trolling influence that they exerted upon the later architectural styles of the Basilican, Byzantine, and Romanesque styles.