Greece Architecture Part 5

While in the archaic sacred buildings extensive use was made of local rough stones (poros for Attica) and terracotta coatings, little by little during the century. VI, except in Magna Graecia and Sicily, marble is being replaced. A salient feature in sacred architecture in particular, but in general in all Greek architecture, is polychromy; violent, brazen. with the prevalence of red and blue, in the archaic monuments, and with floral or vegetal decorations in the terracottas and then in the architectural elements that replace the terracottas, more peaceful in the constructions after the century. Street. C.

In a certain way also the tomb is part of sacred architecture, given the belief among the Greeks of the heroisation of the deceased, and the consequent cult of the dead.

Already in the Homeric age, that is in the so-called Hellenic Middle Ages, mounds were raised to the dead; thus in Olympia the tomb of Pelops was a mound with trees, surrounded by a walled enclosure. The mound remained in advanced age; in the plain of Maratona was the tumulus of the 192 Athenians who fell in the famous battle; indeed these mounds, near which a lion statue usually stood, were peculiar in the battlefields (Platea, Cheronea). Thus the cumulative tomb became a heróon. It is a herdónit was the funerary enclosure of Trisa (Ǧölbaşï) in Lycia, from the end of the century. It goes. C., rectangular enclosure, with the walls adorned with reliefs and with sarcophagi in the middle. It was actually the maintenance of a Mycenaean tradition: remember the circular funerary enclosure of the acropolis of Mycenae. Naturally in the Hellenistic period all this acquired an ever more luxurious character; so the herbónof Antigono Gonata near Cnido was a large enclosure which, in addition to the tombs and the altar, contained a stadium, arcades and baths. But there are tombs with shapes closer to temples, and this appears in Asia Minor. At first it is the monument of the Nereids of Xanto in Lycia, perhaps from the end of the century. It goes. C.: a high rectangular base adorned with reliefs, which was the real tomb; above an Ionic temple for worship, perittero, tetrastyle. It is the form of a sepulchral edifice that reaches its highest expression in the mausoleum of Halicarnassus, that is, in the tomb of Mausolus (who died in 353 BC), king of Caria and his wife Artemisia, a work, as far as architecture is concerned., of Satyr and of Piteo or Pitide. The graphic reconstruction of the building, now completely destroyed, is still the subject of debate; however in general it is certain that it was a construction composed of three parts: the lower part, with a large rectangular base of about m. 66 per m. 77.50, enclosing the royal tomb; the middle part, consisting of a cell surrounded by a portico of 36 Ionic columns; the upper part, in the shape of a stepped pyramid supporting a quadriga. Everything had to measure about 46 meters in height.

Finally, two types of construction can be included in sacred architecture: the stadium and the theater. And indeed both of them owe their origin to the cult of the divinity, and can be considered as substitutes for tiered buildings, with space reserved for gymnastic competitions and perhaps even ceremonies, which are on the edge of the princely palaces of Minoan age of Knossos and Phaistos.

In the stadium, from ancient rectangular forms, elongated forms were reached, with a semicircle at the bottom (sfcndóne), at the opposite end of the starting line for the race (áfesis). Assai più dello stadio di Olimpia ci è noto quello di Delfi, ben conservato, risalente nelle parti più antiche al sec. V.

Greater importance from the architectural point of view has the theater whose first news are of the century. YOU.

According to thedresswizard, the first stone theater was that of Dionysus in Athens, where you can follow all the subsequent transformations from the fifth century to. C. until late imperial times. To the sec. V can bring back the beautiful theater of Syracuse, lying on the slopes of Colle Temenite: it is much larger than the Athenian, measuring 138.60 meters in diameter; had 59 rows of seats (báthra) divided horizontally by a corridor (diázoma) and vertically by ten ladders, so as to form nine wedges (kerkídes). Other Greek theaters in Sicily are those of Segesta, Tindari, Palazzolo Acreide, Catania, Taormina. Returning to Greece, it should be mentioned as still belonging to the 5th century BC. C., the theater of Torico with a very irregular, elongated shape. The theater of Epidaurus dates back to the first half of the fourth century, an opera, like the thólosof Epidaurus itself, of Polykleitos the Younger, and already in antiquity (Pausanias, II, 27, 5) considered to be the most beautiful and most harmonious theater. Excellently preserved, the theater of Epidaurus has a large auditorium with tiers that exceeds the semicircle; it is divided into two areas: the upper with 22 sectors, the lower with 12; the orchestra is a perfect circle with a diameter of 20 meters, and the proscenium is given by a long portico with pillars provided with Ionic half columns and with protruding paraskénia ; next to the párodoithey were short ramps leading to the proscenium. Almost contemporary to the beautiful theater of Epidaurus is that of Megalopoli, an Arcadian city founded in 371 BC. C.; this theater was in front of the so-called Thersílion. Coming down to the third century, among the various theatrical constructions, those of Priene and Delos stand out. In the Priene theater the cavea has almost the shape of a half ellipse with 5 sectors; the scene (300 BC) has a colonnade, on which a second floor was raised in late Hellenistic times. The scene of the Delos theater in the form of a hall is singular, with three doors in the front and one in the back: this room is entirely surrounded by a portico. To the sec. III dates back to the most ancient parts of the theater of Pergamum, which rests on the acropolis and which has a very steep cavea; only in late Hellenism, ie in the century. I a. C., a stone scene was raised. Even in the sec. III belongs, in its most ancient parts, the theater of Ephesus, a large building in which about 25,000 spectators took place; here too the scene is from late Hellenism, that is, from the 12th century. I a. C.; has five openings and shows itself, next to the scene of the Priene theater, as a precursor to thescaenae frons of the Roman theater. A true two-story Roman scaenae frons was erected in the theater of Ephesus in the 10th century. I d. C., and had extensions with the addition of a third floor at the beginning of the century. III d. C. The theater of Termesso and that of Aspendo in Asia Minor are other outstanding examples of late Greek theater with a raised stage. Thus in recent Hellenistic times the Greek theater approaches the Roman one.