Greece Architecture Part 7
Of the Doric order, but with Ionic elements inserted, the Athenian Propylaea consist of a central body with a vestibule, towards the acropolis level, with Doric columns, surmounted by a triglyph and a pediment, and with a Doric-type facade, exastila, towards the slope of the acropolis; this central body, through which the via sacra passed, is divided into three naves by two rows of three Ionic columns each; on the sides of the central body towards the slope of the acropolis are two classrooms: the one on the left, the largest, was the Pinacoteca. Mnesicle’s primitive plan was wider, because it had to include two vast rooms on the acropolis level on either side of the central body; but this plan was not carried out, perhaps because it ran counter to reasons of a religious nature, invading spaces intended for worship.
In addition to the propylaea, whose use we see essentially in the Hellenistic age as an entrance to squares, we have the arcades, which, precisely in this Hellenistic age, surround the squares themselves. See, p. eg, the courtyard that precedes the buleuterio of Miletus, which is surrounded by a Doric portico, and is provided with a large Corinthian tetrastyle propylaeus; the courtyard contained a richly decorated heróon. Of these arcades, enclosing squares or sacred enclosures or terraced spaces, those of Priene, Ephesus, Pergamum and Ege are noteworthy.
In Priene, it is the double portico on the northern side of the market, with Doric columns on the outside, Ionic on the inside. In Ephesus the portico in front of the Oideĩon, with Ionic columns, from which, above the volutes, bull heads protrude, a motif taken from Persia. In Pergamum there is the portico enclosing two sides of the terrace of the temple of Athena, and perhaps due to Eumenes II (197-159 BC); in this arcade the type introduced by the architect Sostrato di Cnido, the builder of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, of the two-storey arcade is followed: here on the lower floor is the Doric order, in the upper the Ionic, this union is then seen usually followed in Roman architecture. Internally, the Doric portico corresponds to a row of thin palm-shaped capitals columns; the balustrade on the upper floor is remarkable, where panoplies are expressed in very fine relief. Finally, in Ege there is a three-storey portico: the two lower floors, closed, served as warehouses, the upper one is a large double portico.
In Hellenism, separate arcades were also built, as a shelter for merchants and for strolls. Thus we have in Olympia, south of the buleuterio, a double portico; thus we have in Athens the arcades, also double, of Eumenes II on the southern side of the Acropolis, and of Attalus II in the agora; in the latter one can observe the two floors, as in the portico of Eumenes II in Pergamum, the lower Doric, the upper Ionic. The Portico of the bulls in Delos is of a sacred nature: m. 125, preceded by a Doric tetrastyle vestibule, is divided into two rooms: the first, very long, was illuminated by twelve windows, the second contained the base of an altar; in the division between the two rooms there were four Doric half columns: the two central columns of these leaned on two pillars with capitals in the shape of bull protomes.
Perhaps in this building the flagship of Demetrio Poliorcete was preserved, dedicated by Ptolemy I after the decisive victory over him in 288 BC. C.
According to vaultedwatches, public works were also the sources, and therefore the aqueducts. The first example of plumbing works occurs in the second half of the century. VII, with the fountain built by the tyrant Teagene in Megara, and which was called the Hekatónstylos (“with a hundred columns”); part of the aqueduct and remains of the reservoir have been found. Of Megara was Eupalino, who was commissioned by the tyrant Polycrates of Samo to drill a mountain for about a mile in order to lead drinking water to Samo; the gallery, admirable for the time in which it was carried out (Polychrates died in 522 BC), has been identified, as was the discovery of the water reservoir. Thus the Pisistratids in the contemporary age in Polychrates had the Enneakrounós (fountain with nine mouths) built in Athens to contain the water of the Callirroe. Certainly the Enneakrounós must have exerted its influence on the fountains which were later erected in various Greek cities; this influence is easy to perceive in the beautiful fountain of Ialysos (Rhodes), which was preceded, like the Enneakrounós, by a portico; here the portico was Doric with six columns. The fountain of Ialysus is perhaps of the century. IV a. C., posterior is that of Figalia, a tetrastyle edifice of Doric order; still behind is the fountain in the shape of an environment with four columns, arranged in pairs, in the agora of Magnesia. The fountain of Ialysus is perhaps of the century. IV a. C., posterior is that of Figalia, a tetrastyle edifice of Doric order; still behind is the fountain in the shape of an environment with four columns, arranged in pairs, in the agora of Magnesia. The fountain of Ialysus is perhaps of the century. IV a. C., posterior is that of Figalia, a tetrastyle edifice of Doric order; still behind is the fountain in the shape of an environment with four columns, arranged in pairs, in the agora of Magnesia.
In the walls, after the walls with large non-square blocks, called cyclopean (Pausanias, II, 25, 8), of the Mycenaean age and of which the best example is given to us by the castle of Tirinto, after the walls of character less rough with square boulders than Mycenae and Hissarlik (sixth layer), we have, even in relatively late age, examples of primitive walls; likewise in the fortresses of Katsínkri in Argolis, of Mytilene and of Heresus on the island of Lesbos; indeed even more primitive for the rough boulders stacked one on top of the other, while minor pieces of filling and reinforcement are in the interstice, the wall of Arisba appears on the same island of Lesbos. An irregular wall with elongated boulders is that of Paro; in the walls of Megara Iblea, destroyed by the Syracusans around 482 BC. C., there is an external face made of regular blocks arranged in rows and closely connected together. So regular are the walls of Caulonia, perhaps from the end of the century. VII, built with the sack method, between two pebble hangings carefully arranged and strengthened at the corners by sandstone boulders reconnected with great care. The surrounding walls of Pesto, now isodomian, are also very accurate. Sometimes brick was used in the walls, as in those that Pericles had Kallikrates built to unite Athens to Piraeus.
