A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ALL COUNTRIES, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY. (Volume I)

FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Although the present work may in some respects be considered as only a new edition of the ‘Handbook of Architecture,’ still the alterations, both in substance and in form, have been so extensive as to render the adoption of a new title almost indispensable. The topographical arrangement, which was the basis of the ‘Handbook,’ has been abandoned, and a historical sequence introduced in its place. This has entirely altered the argument of the book, and, with the changes and additions which it has involved, has rendered it practically a new work; containing, it is true, all that was included in the previous publication, but with a great deal that is new and little that retains its original form.

The logical reasons for these changes will be set forth in their proper place in the body of the work; but meanwhile, as the Preface is that part of it which should properly include all personal explanations, I trust I may not be considered as laying myself open to a charge of egotism, if I avail myself of this conventional licence in explaining the steps by which this work attained its present form.

It was my good fortune to be able to devote many years of my life to the study of Architecture—as a fine art—under singularly favourable circumstances: not only was I able to extend my personal observations to the examples found in almost all the countries between China and the Atlantic shore, but I lived familiarly among a people who were still practising their traditional art on the same principles as those which guided the architects of the Middle Ages in the production of similar but scarcely more beautiful or more original works. With these antecedents, I found myself in possession of a considerable amount of information regarding buildings which had not previously been described, and—what I considered of more value—of an insight into the theory of the art, which was certainly even more novel.

Believing this knowledge and these principles to be of sufficient importance to justify me in so doing, I resolved on publishing a work xivin which they should be embodied; and, in furtherance of this idea, sixteen years ago I wrote a book entitled ‘The True Principles of Beauty in Art.’ The work was not—nor was it intended to be—popular in its form. It was an attempt of a young author to do what he thought right and best, without consulting the wishes of the public on the subject, and the first result, as might have been—and indeed was—anticipated, was that no publisher would undertake it. In consequence of this, only the first volume was published by Longmans in 1849, and that at my own expense and risk. The event proved that the booksellers were right. The book did not sell, and it became a question whether it was worth my while to waste my time and spend my money on a work which the public did not want, or whether it would not be wiser to abandon it, and wait for some more favourable opportunity. Various circumstances of no public interest induced me at the time to adopt the latter course, and I felt I could do so without any breach of faith, as the work, as then published, was complete in itself, though it had been intended to add two more volumes to the one already published.

Some years afterwards a proposal was made to me by Mr. Murray to utilise the materials collected for the more ambitious work in the more popular form of a Handbook of Architecture. The work was written in a very much more popular manner than that I had previously adopted, or than I then liked, or now think worthy of the subject; but the result proved that it was a style much better suited to the public demand, for this time the work was successful. Since its publication in 1855 a large number of copies have been sold; the work has now for some years been out of print, and a new edition is demanded. Under these circumstances the question arose, whether it would be better to republish the Handbook in its original form, with such additions and emendations as its arrangement admitted of, or whether it would not be better to revert to a form nearly approaching that adopted in the ‘True Principles,’ rather than that followed in the composition of the Handbook, as one more worthy of the subject, and better capable of developing its importance.

The immense advantages of the historical over the topographical method are too self-evident to require being pointed out, whenever the object is to give a general view of the whole of such a subject as that treated of in these volumes, or an attempt is made to trace the connexion of the various parts to one another. If the intention is only to describe particular styles or separate buildings, the topographical arrangement may be found more convenient: but where xvanything beyond this is attempted, the historical method is the only one which enables it to be done. Believing that the architectural public do now desire something more than mere dry information with regard to the age and shape of buildings, it has been determined to remodel the work and to adopt the historical arrangement.

In the present instance there does not seem to be the usual objection to such a rearrangement—that it would break the thread of continuity between the old and the new publication—inasmuch as, whichever method were adopted, the present work must practically be a new book. The mass of information obtained during the last ten years has been so great that even in the present volume a considerable portion of it had to be rewritten, and a great deal added. In the second volume the alterations will be even more extensive. The publication of the great national work on Spanish antiquities,^[3] of Parcerisa’s ‘Beauties, &c., of Spain,’^[4] and, above all, Mr. Street’s work,^[5] have rendered Spanish architecture as intelligible as that of any other country, though ten years ago it was a mystery and a puzzle. Schulz’s^[6] work has rendered the same service for Southern Italy, while the publications of De Vogüé^[7] and Texier^[8] will necessitate an entirely new treatment of the early history of Byzantine art. The French have been busily occupied during the last ten years in editing their national monuments; so have the Germans. So that in Europe little of importance remains to be described. In Asia, too, great progress has been made. Photography has rendered us familiar with many buildings we only knew before by description, and both the Hindu and Mahomedan remains of India are now generally accessible to the public. Colonel Yule’s^[9] work on Burmah and M. Mouhot’s^[10] on Siam have made us acquainted with the form of the buildings of those countries, and China too has been opened to the architectural student. When the Handbook was written there were many places and buildings regarding which no authentic information was available. That can hardly be said to be the case now as respects any really important building, and the time, therefore, seems to have xviarrived when their affiliation can be pointed out, if it ever can be, and the study of architecture may be raised from dry details of measurements to the dignity of an historical science.

In the present work it is intended that the first two volumes shall cover the same extent of ground as was comprised in the two volumes of the ‘Handbook,’ as originally published, with such enlargement as is requisite to incorporate all recent additions to our knowledge; and chapters will be added on Celtic—or, as they are vulgarly called, Druidical—remains omitted in the ‘Handbook.’ The ‘History of Modern Architecture’ will thus form the third volume of the work; and when—if ever—it comes to be reprinted, it is intended to add a Glossary of architectural terms, and other matters necessary to complete the book. When all this is done, the work will be increased from 1500 pages, which is the number comprised in the three volumes as at present published, to more than 2000 pages, and the illustrations will be augmented in at least an equal ratio.^[11] Notwithstanding all this, it is too evident that even then the work can only be considered as an introduction to the subject, and it would require a work at least ten times as large to do full justice even to our present knowledge of the history of architecture. Any one at all familiar with the literature of the subject can see at once why this is so. Viollet le Duc, for instance, is now publishing a dictionary of French architecture from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. The work will consist, when complete, of ten volumes, and probably 5000 illustrations. Yet even this will by no means exhaust the history of the style in one country of Europe during the five centuries indicated. It would require at least as many volumes to illustrate, even imperfectly, the architectural history of England during the same period. Germany would fill an equal number; and the mediæval architecture of Italy and Spain could not be described in less space.

In other words, fifty volumes and 20,000 woodcuts would barely suffice to complete what must in the present work be compressed into 500 pages, with a like number of illustrations.

Under these circumstances it will be easily understood that this book is far from pretending to be a complete or exhaustive history of the art. It is neither an atlas nor a gazetteer, but simply a general map of the architectural world, and—if I may be allowed the small joke—on Mercator’s projection. It might with propriety be called an xviiabridgment, if there existed any larger history from which it could be supposed to be abridged. At one time I intended to designate it ‘An Historical Introduction to the Study of Architecture, considered as a Fine Art;’ but though such a title might describe correctly enough the general scope of the work, its length is objectionable, and, like every periphrasis, it is liable to misconstruction.

The simple title of ‘History’ has therefore been adopted, under the impression that it is entitled to such a denomination until at least some narrative more worthy of the subject takes its place. Considering the limits it thus became necessary to impose on the extent of the work, it must be obvious that the great difficulty of its composition was in the first place to compress so vast a subject into so small a compass; and next, to determine what buildings to select for illustration, and what to reject. It would have been infinitely easier to explain what was necessary to be said, had the number of woodcuts been doubled. Had the text been increased in the same ratio a great many things might have been made clear to all, which will now, I fear, demand a certain amount of previous knowledge on the part of my readers. To have done this, however, would have defeated some of the great objects of the present publication, which is intended to convey a general view of the history and philosophy of the subject, without extending the work so as to make it inconveniently large, or increasing the price so as to render it inaccessible to a large number of readers. The principle consequently that has been adopted in the selection of the illustrations is, first, that none of the really important typical specimens of the art shall be passed over without some such illustrations as shall render them intelligible; and, after this, those examples are chosen which are remarkable either for their own intrinsic merit, or for their direct bearing in elucidation of the progress or affinities of the style under discussion; all others being sternly rejected as irrelevant, notwithstanding the almost irresistible temptation at times to adorn my pages with fascinating illustrations. The reader who desires information not bearing on the general thread of the narrative must thus have recourse to monographs, or other special works, which alone can supply his wants in a satisfactory manner.

It may tend to explain some things which appear open to remark in the following pages, if I allude here to a difference of opinion which has frequently been pointed out as existing between the views I have expressed and those generally received regarding several points of ancient history or ethnology. I always have been aware that this xviiidiscrepancy exists; but it has appeared to me an almost inevitable consequence of the different modes of investigation pursued. Almost all those who have hitherto written on these subjects have derived their information from Greek and Roman written texts; but, if I am not very much mistaken, these do not suffice. The classic authors were very imperfectly informed as to the history of the nations who preceded or surrounded them; they knew very little of the archæology of their own countries, and less of their ethnography. So long, therefore, as our researches are confined to what they had written, many important problems remain unsolved, and must ever remain as unsolvable as they have hitherto proved.

My conviction is, that the lithic mode of investigation is not only capable of supplementing to a very great extent the deficiencies of the graphic method, and of yielding new and useful results, but that the information obtained by its means is much more trustworthy than anything that can be elaborated from the books of that early age. It does not therefore terrify me in the least to be told that such men as Niebuhr, Cornewall Lewis, or Grote, have arrived at conclusions different from those I have ventured to express in the following pages. Their information is derived wholly from what is written, and it does not seem ever to have occurred to them, or to any of our best scholars, that there was either history or ethnography built into the architectural remains of antiquity.

While they were looking steadily at one side of the shield, I fancy I have caught a glimpse of the other.

It has been the accident of my life—I do not claim it as a merit—that I have wandered all over the Old World. I have seen much that they never saw, and I have had access to sources of information of which they do not suspect the existence. While they were trying to reconcile what the Greek or Roman authors said about nations who never wrote books, and with regard to whom they consequently had little information, I was trying to read the history which these very people had recorded in stone, in characters as clear and far more indelible than those written in ink. If, consequently, we arrived at different conclusions, it may possibly be owing more to the sources from which the information is derived than to any difference between the individuals who announce it.

Since the invention of printing, I am quite prepared to admit that the “litera scripta” may suffice. In an age like the present, when nine-tenths of the population can read, and every man who has anything to say rushes into print, or makes a speech which is printed next xixmorning, every feeling and every information regarding a people may be dug out of its books. But it certainly was not so in the Middle Ages, nor in the early ages of Greek or Roman history. Still less was this so in Egypt, nor is it the case in India, or in many other countries; and to apply our English nineteenth century experience to all these seems to me to be a mistake. In those countries and times, men who had a hankering after immortality were forced to build their aspirations into the walls of their tombs or of their temples. Those who had poetry in their souls, in nine cases out of ten expressed it by the more familiar vehicle of sculpture or painting rather than in writing. To me it appears that to neglect these in trying to understand the manners and customs, or the history of an ancient people, is to throw away one-half, and generally the most valuable half, in some cases the whole, of the evidence bearing on the subject. So long as learned men persist in believing that all that can be known of the ancient world is to be found in their books, and resolutely ignore the evidence of architecture and of art, we have little in common. I consequently feel neither abashed nor ashamed at being told that men of the most extensive book-learning have arrived at different conclusions from myself—on the contrary, if it should happen that we agreed in some point to which their contemporary works did not extend, I should rather be inclined to suspect some mistake, and hesitate to put it down.

There is one other point in which I fancy misconception exists, of a nature that may probably be more easily removed by personal explanation than by any other means. It is very generally objected to my writings that I neither understand nor appreciate the beauties of Gothic architecture, and consequently criticise it with undue severity. I regret that such a feeling should prevail, partly because it is prejudicial to the dissemination of the views I am anxious to promulgate, but more because at a time when in this country the admiration of Gothic art is so nearly universal, it alienates from me the best class of men who love the art, and prevents their co-operating with me in the improvement of our architecture, which is the great object which we all have at heart.

If I cannot now speak of Gothic architecture with the same enthusiasm as others, this certainly was not the case in the early part of my career as a student of art. Long after I turned my attention to the subject, I knew and believed in none but the mediæval styles, and was as much astonished as the most devoted admirer of Gothic architecture could be, when any one suggested that any other forms could be compared with it. If I did not learn to understand it then, it was xxnot for want of earnest attention and study. I got so far into its spirit that I thought I saw then how better things could be done in Gothic art than had been done either in the Middle Ages or since; and I think so now. But if it is to be done, it must be by free thought, not by servile copying.

My faith in the exclusive pre-eminence of mediæval art was first shaken when I became familiar with the splendid remains of the Mogul and Pathan emperors of Agra and Delhi, and saw how many beauties of even the pointed style had been missed in Europe in the Middle Ages. My confidence was still further weakened when I saw what richness and variety the Hindu had elaborated not only without pointed arches, but indeed without any arches at all. And I was cured when, after a personal inspection of the ruins of Thebes and Athens, I perceived that at least equal beauty could be obtained by processes diametrically opposed to those employed by the mediæval architects.

After so extended a survey, it was easy to perceive that beauty in architecture did not reside in pointed or in round arches, in bracket capitals or horizontal architraves, but in thoughtful appropriateness of design and intellectual elegance of detail. I became convinced that no form is in itself better than any other, and that in all instances those are best which are most appropriate to the purposes to which they are applied.

So self-evident do these principles—which are the basis of the reasoning employed in this book—appear to me, that I feel convinced that there are very few indeed even of the most exclusive admirers of mediæval art who would not admit them, if they had gone through the same course of education as has fallen to my lot. My own conviction is, that the great difference which seems to exist between my views and those of the parties opposed to them arises almost entirely from this accident of education.

In addition to this, however, we must not overlook the fact that for three centuries all the architects in Europe concurred in believing that the whole of their art began and ended in copying classical forms and details. When a reaction came, it was not, unfortunately, in the direction of freedom; but towards a more servile imitation of another style, which—whether better or worse in itself—was not a style of our age, nor suited to our wants or feelings.

It is perhaps not to be wondered at, that after three centuries of perseverance in one particular groove, men should have ceased to have any faith in the possibility of reason or originality being employed in xxiarchitectural design. As, however, I can adduce in favour of my views 3000 years of perfect success in all countries and under all circumstances, against 300 years of absolute failure in consequence of the copying system, though under circumstances the most favourable to success in other respects, there seems at least an à priori probability that I may be right and that the copyists may be mistaken.

I may be deceiving myself, but I cannot help fancying that I perceive signs of a reaction. Some men are becoming aware of the fact that “archæology is not architecture,” and would willingly see something done more reasonable than an attempt to reproduce the Middle Ages. The misfortune is, that their enlightenment is more apt to lead to despondency than to hope. “If,” they ask, “we cannot find what we are looking for in our own national style, where are we to look for it?” The obvious answer, that it is to be found in the exercise of common sense, where all the rest of the world have found it, seems to them beside the mark. Architecture with most people is a mystery—something different from all other arts; and they do not see that it is and must be subject to the same rules as they all are, and must be practised in the same manner, if it is to be successful.

Whether the nation will or will not soon awaken to the importance of this prosaic anti-climax, one thing at least seems certain and most hopeful. Men are not satisfied with what is doing; a restless, inquiring spirit is abroad, and if people can only be induced to think seriously about it, I feel convinced that they will be as much astonished at their present admiration of Gothic town-halls and Hyde Park Albert Memorials, as we are now at the Gothic fancies of Horace Walpole and the men of his day.

NOTE.

Although every possible care has been taken in selecting the best authorities for the statements in the text of the work, as well as the subjects for illustration, still no one acquainted with the state of the literature of architecture will need to be told that in many branches few materials exist for a correct description of the style, and that the drawings which are available are frequently so inexact, and with scales so carelessly applied, that it is impossible at times to avoid error. The plans throughout the book are on too small a scale to render any minute errors apparent, but being drawn to a uniform scale of 100 feet to 1 inch, or 1⁄1200 of the real size, they are quite sufficient as a means of comparison, even when not mathematically correct. They suffice to enable the reader to judge of the relative size of two buildings by a mere inspection of the plans, as correctly as he could by seeing the buildings themselves, without actually measuring them in all their details.

As a general rule, the sections or elevations of buildings, throughout the book, are drawn to a scale double that of the plans, viz., 50 feet to 1 inch, or 1⁄600 of the real dimensions; but, owing to the great size of many of them, it has been found impossible to carry out this in all instances: where it has not been effected the departure from the rule is always noted, either below the woodcut or in the text.

No lineal dimensions are quoted in the text except such as it is believed can be relied upon, and in all instances these are reduced to English feet. The superficial measures also in the text, like the plans, are quite sufficient for comparison, though not to be relied upon as absolutely correct. One great source of uncertainty as regards them is the difficulty of knowing at times what should be included in the building referred to. Should, for instance, the Lady Chapel at Ely be considered an integral part of the Cathedral, or the Chapter-house at Wells? Should the sacristies attached to Continental cathedrals be considered as part of the church? or such semi-detached towers as the south-western one at Bourges? What constitutes the temple at Karnac, and how much of this belongs to the Hypostyle Hall? These and fifty other questions occur in almost every instance which may lead two persons to very different conclusions regarding the superficial dimensions of a building, even without the errors inherent in imperfect materials.

When either the drawing from which the woodcut is taken was without a scale, or the scale given could not be depended upon, “No scale” has been put under the woodcut, to warn the reader of the fact. When the woodcut was either too large for the page, or too small to be distinct if reduced to the usual scale, a scale of feet has been added under it, to show that it is an exception to the rule.

Capitals, windows, and details which are meant to illustrate forms or construction, and not particular buildings, are drawn to any scale that seemed best to express the purpose for which they are inserted; when they are remarkable for size, or as individual examples, a scale has been added; but this is the exception, not the rule.

Every pain has been taken to secure the greatest possible amount of accuracy, and in all instances the sources from which the woodcuts have been taken are indicated. Many of the illustrations are from original drawings, and of buildings never before published.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTION. — PART I. — Section I. — II.—Beauty in Art. — III.—Definition of Architecture. — IV.—Mass. — V.—Stability. — VI.—Durability. — VII.—Materials. — VIII.—Construction. — IX.—Forms. — X—Proportion. — XI.—Carved Ornament. — XII.—Decorative Colour. — XIII.—Sculpture and Painting. — XIV.—Uniformity. — XV.—Imitation of Nature. — XVI.—Association. — XVII.—New Style. — XVIII.—Prospects.

Like every other object of human inquiry, Architecture may be studied from two distinct points of view. Either it may be regarded statically, and described scientifically as a thing existing, without any reference to the manner in which it was invented; or it may be treated historically, tracing every form from its origin and noting the influence one style has had upon another in the progress of time.

The first of these methods is more technical, and demands on the part of the student very considerable previous knowledge before it can be successfully prosecuted. The other, besides being more popular and easily followed, has the advantage of separating the objects of study into natural groups, and tracing more readily their connection and relation to one another. The great superiority, however, of the historical mode of study arises from the fact that, when so treated, Architecture ceases to be a mere art, interesting only to the artist or his employer, but becomes one of the most important adjuncts of history, filling up many gaps in the written record and giving life and reality to much that without its presence could with difficulty be realised.

A still more important use of architecture, when followed as a history, is found in its ethnographic value. Every different race of men had their own peculiar forms in using the productions of this art, and their own mode of expressing their feelings or aspirations by its means. When properly studied, it consequently affords a means as important as language for discriminating between the different races of mankind—often more so, and one always more trustworthy and more easily understood.

In consequence of these advantages, the historical mode is that which will be followed in this work. But before entering upon the narrative, it will be well if a correct definition of what Architecture really is can be obtained. Without some clear views on the technical position of the art, much that follows will be unintelligible and the meaning of what is said may be mistaken.

4A great deal of the confusion of ideas existing on the subject of Architecture arises from the fact that writers have been in the habit of speaking of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as three similar fine arts, practised on the same principles. This error arose in the 16th century, when in a fatal hour painters and sculptors undertook also the practice of architecture, and builders ceased to be architects. This confusion of ideas has been perpetuated to the present hour, and much of the degraded position of the art at this day is owing to the mistake then made. It cannot therefore be too strongly insisted upon that there is no essential connection between painting and sculpture on the one hand and architecture on the other.

The two former rank among what are called Phonetic arts. Their business is to express by colour or form ideas that could be—generally have been—expressed by words. With the Egyptians their hieroglyphical paintings were their only means of recording their ideas. With us, such a series of pictures as Hogarth’s ‘Mariage à la Mode’ or ‘The Rake’s Progress’ are novels written with the brush; and many of our Mediæval cathedrals possess whole Bibles carved in stone. Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture are three branches of one form of art, refined from Prose, Colour, and Carving, and form a group apart, interchanging ideas and modes of expression, but always dealing with the same class of images and appealing to the same class of feelings.

Distinct and separate from these Phonetic arts is another group, generally known as the Technic arts, comprising all those which minister to the primary wants of mankind under such various heads as food, clothing, and shelter. Between these two groups is a third called the Æsthetic arts, forming, as it were, a flux between the Technic and Phonetic arts, fusing the whole into one homogeneous mass. They take their rise from the fact that to every want which the technic arts are designed to supply, Nature has attached a gratification which is capable of refining all the useful arts into fine arts. Thus the Technic art of agriculture is capable of supplying food in its simple form; but by the refinements of cookery and of wine-making, simple meats and drinks are capable of affording endless gratification to the senses. Simple clothing to keep out the cold requires little art, but embroidery, dyeing, lace-making, and fifty other arts employ the hands of millions, and the gratification afforded by their use, the thoughts of as many more. Shelter, too, is easily provided, but ornamental and ornamented shelter, or in other words architecture, is one of the most prominent of the fine arts. Music, though hardly known as a useful art, is the most typical of the Æsthetic arts, and, “married to immortal verse,” steps upwards into the region of the Phonetic arts, just as building, when used for ornament, is raised out of the domain of the Technic arts.

Like music, colour and form may be so arranged as to afford 5infinite pleasure to the senses without their having any phonetic value; but when used, as sculpture and paintings are and have been in all ages, to tell a tale or to express emotion, they rank high among the Phonetic arts; and though able to express certain impressions even more vividly than can be done by words, they cannot rise to the high intellectual position that can be attained either by Poetry or Eloquence when expressed only in that verbal language which is the highest gift of God to man.

The term Beauty in Art is little else than a synonym for Perfection, but perfection in these three classes of arts is far from being the same thing, or of anything like the same value, as an intellectual expression. The beauty of a machine, however complicated, arises mainly from its adaptability to use; while a mosaic of exquisite colours, or an elevated piece of instrumental music, raises emotions of a far higher class: and a painting or a poem may appeal to all that is great or noble in human nature.

If, for instance, we take a dozen arts at random, and divide them into twelve equal component parts, as they belong to each of the three divisions, Technic, Æsthetic, or Phonetic. If we further assign one as the relative intellectual value of the Technic element, two as that due to the Æsthetic, and three as the proportionate importance of the Phonetic, we obtain the index number in the fourth column of the table below, which is probably not far from expressing the true relative value of each. Of course there are adventitious circumstances which may raise the proportionate value of any art very considerably, and, on the other hand, neglect of cultivation may depress others below their true value; but the principles on which the table is formed are probably those by which a correct estimate may be most easily obtained.

The first three arts enumerated in the above table are evidently utterly incapable of Phonetic expression, and the first hardly even can 6be raised to the second class, though air combined with warmth does afford pleasure to the senses. Joinery may convey an idea of perfection from the mode in which it is designed or executed; while gastronomy, as above mentioned, does really afford important gratification to the senses, approaching nearly in importance to the plain food-supplying art of cookery. Jewellery may combine extreme mechanical beauty of execution with the most harmonious arrangement of colour, and may also be made to express a meaning, though only to a very limited extent. Clothing depends on both colour and form for its perfection more than even beauty of material, and may be made to express gaiety or sorrow, though perhaps more from association than from any inherent qualities. The arts of the potter can exhibit not only perfection in execution, but practically depend both in colour and form, especially the latter, to raise their products out of the category of mere Technic arts; while the paintings on them, which are indispensable to the highest class of ceramique, render them capable of taking their place among those objects which affect a Phonetic mode of utterance. As mentioned above, floriculture and landscape gardening may, besides their use, afford infinite pleasure to the senses and even express gaiety or gloom, and, from mere prettiness, may rise towards something like sublimity in expression.

Architecture is, however, the central art of the group, which in its highest form combines all the three classes in nearly equal proportions, but not always necessarily so. The Pyramids of Egypt, for instance, though Technically the most wonderful buildings in the world, have very little Æsthetic, and hardly more than one of Phonetic, value. The great temple at Baalbec,—and in fact all the Roman temples, may be classed as containing six parts of Technic value for mechanical excellence of size and construction, four for beauty of form and detail, but certainly not more than two parts for any expression of religion or intellect they may exhibit, making up twenty for the index of their artistic value. Cologne cathedral takes very nearly the same position in the scale, but Rheims, Bourges, and the more perfect Gothic cathedrals may be classed higher, as five Technic, three Æsthetic, and four Phonetic, making twenty-three altogether as their index; and they are only surpassed by such a building as the Parthenon at Athens, which, though not so large and imposing as some others, is, so far as we know, the most perfect building yet erected by man. It owes this perfection mainly to the equal balance of parts. There is nothing so difficult or startling in its construction as there is in most Gothic cathedrals; but what there is is mechanically perfect, both in design and execution. Its form is nearly perfect, combining stability with simplicity and at the same time avoiding monotony or any appearance of greater strength than is absolutely necessary. Its details are all as exquisite in form as the 7Temple itself, and it was at one time coloured to an extent we can hardly now realise, but which must, when complete, have made it one of the most perfect examples of Æsthetic art. The walls of the cella were almost certainly covered with Phonetic paintings similar to those in the Lesche at Delphi; and the pediment, the metopes, the friezes, were all sculptured to such an extent as to render the Phonetic expression of the building at least equal to either its Technic or its Æsthetic excellence. It is easy to conceive a building, such as a trophy or a mausoleum, in which painting and sculpture shall be relatively more important than they are in this instance, and in which consequently the index may be raised above twenty-four; but if this were so, it ought probably to be classed among works of sculpture or painting rather than as an object of architecture.

In music the Æsthetic element naturally prevails over the other two, but Technic cleverness of execution often affords to some as much pleasure as the harmony of the sounds produced; and, on the other hand, in its power of expressing joy or sorrow and of exciting varied emotions at will, it rivals frequently the more distinct and permanent power of words themselves, when unaccompanied by Æsthetic forms of art. It is of course, however, in the outpourings of his imagination or in the logical products of his reason that man rises highest, and stands most distinctly apart from the rest of created beings; and though all may not be capable of appreciating it, it is when both Technic and Æsthetic adjuncts are laid aside, and man listens only to the voice of reason, that he reaches what, as far as we can now see, is the highest form of his artistic development.

Of course there are many other forms in which this might be expressed, and many will be inclined to dispute the correctness of the figures assigned to each art. They are, in fact, only approximations, and as a first attempt can hardly be expected to meet all the conditions of the problem. The truth of the matter is, it would have been better to use algebraic symbols and to allow every one to translate them into numbers according to his own fancy, but in the present state of matters such an attempt would have savoured of affectation. The art of criticism is not sufficiently advanced for this, but if two or three would follow up what is here indicated it might be placed on a basis from which to proceed higher. Meanwhile, perhaps the annexed diagram may serve to explain the relation of the three classes of art to one another, and the way in which they overlap and mix together so as to make up a perfect art. Like the preceding table, it will require several editions, the work of several minds, before it can be perfected, but it probably is not far from representing the truth as at present known.

There is still another relation of these arts to one another which must not be overlooked before proceeding further, as a knowledge of 8it is indispensable in forming a correct judgment of their respective merits. Like the Sciences, the Technic Arts hardly depend, after the first steps have been taken, on individual prowess for their advancement. An astronomer, a chemist, or a natural historian, now starts from the highest point reached by any of his predecessors, and he has only to observe and calculate, to analyse and put together again, in order to advance our knowledge. A giant may of course make a rapid stride in advance, but a hundred dwarfs will, if they persevere steadily in the right path, not only overtake him, but probably advance far beyond anything the most gigantic intellect can accomplish in science. So it is also in the mechanical arts. The immense strides that have of late years been made in improving all the machines employed in manufactures have not been made by the greatest intellects, but by thousands of men suggesting new contrivances and acquiring skill by steady improvement in manipulation. In ship-building, for instance, one of the most complex of the useful arts, no one can tell who the men were who converted the rude galleys in which our forefathers sailed to Crecy and Agincourt into the gigantic commercial steamers and war-ships of the present day. It was the result of thousands of intellects working steadily towards a well-defined aim, and accomplishing a triumph by a process which must always be successful in the Technic arts when persevered in long enough.

Diagram No. 1.

The case is somewhat different with the Æsthetic arts. Some men are insensible to the harmony of colour and are not offended by the crudest contrasts. Others do not perceive concords in music, and the most violent discords give them no pain; others, on the contrary, are endowed with the utmost sensibility on these points, and are consequently not only able to appreciate the beauty of the arts arising out of colour or sound, but of advancing what to those who cannot understand them is an inexplicable mystery.

When from the Æsthetic Arts we turn to the Sciences and Technic 9Arts, we find, as just pointed out, that the individual becomes much less important and the process everything. Every astronomer now knows more than Newton; every chemist than John Dalton. Any ordinary mechanic can start from a higher point than was reached by a Watt or an Arkwright or a Stephenson, and can surpass them. But no man can mount on the shoulders of such men as Handel or Mozart or Beethoven, and surpass them; and the higher we ascend in the scale of arts the more important does the individual become and the less so the process. A Phidias, a Raphael, a Shakespeare, are yet unsurpassed, and possibly never may be. All men may be taught to carve, to colour, and to write mechanically, and may even be instructed to practise these processes so as to afford pleasure to themselves and others; but when from this we rise to Phonetic painting, sculpture, or poetry, and the still higher region of philosophy, the individual becomes all in all, and his special genius there stamps the true value on the production.

In this respect, again, Architecture is singularly happy as a means of study. As a Technic art it is practised in the same progressive principles as all its sister arts, irrespective of individuality. As an Æsthetic art it is hardly so individual as music, because its forms and colours are permanent and capable of being repeated with such improvements as each experiment suggests in every subsequent building; but when it attempts Phonetic forms of utterance, these are seldom so absolutely integral that they cannot be separated from the building and judged of apart. A Greek Temple or a Mediæval cathedral without painting and sculpture may be poor and inanimate, but still so beautiful in its form, so grand from its mass, and so imposing from its durability, that in its Technic-Æsthetic form alone it may command our admiration, more perhaps than any other work of human hands, except of course, as said before, the highest intellectual forms of Phonetic art. Architecture thus combines in itself the steady progressive perfectibility of a Technic art quite independent of the intellectual capabilities of the architect, combined with the Æsthetic appreciation of form and colour which is mostly universal, and can at all events be generally inculcated and learned. But its greatest glory is that it can enlist in its service the higher branches of Phonetic sculpture and painting, which can be exercised only by specially gifted individuals. It is difficult to conceive all these qualities being equally combined in the person of any one architect, and in practice it is by no means necessary for success that it should be so, though, if possible, the combination would no doubt be advantageous. In criticising, on the contrary, it is always necessary to separate and distinguish between the mechanical, the sensuous, and the intellectual part of a design. Without this an intelligent appreciation of its merits or defects can hardly be obtained.

Notwithstanding all that has been pointed out already, and the 10advantages of its central position among the sister arts, combined with its own intrinsic merits, Architecture would never have attained to the high position it now occupies had it not been fitted with an aim which raised it far above all utilitarian feelings. In all ages, though certainly not among all nations, Architecture has been employed as one of the principal forms of worship. The desire to erect a temple to their Gods worthy to be their dwelling-place has exalted even the rude arts of savages into something worthy of admiration, and when such a nation as the Egyptians were inspired with the same desire, they produced, even in the earliest ages, temples which still excite feelings of admiration and of awe. Had the practice of architecture been restricted to supplying only the ordinary wants of mortals, it never would have risen to be the noble art it now is. Neither the palaces of the greatest kings, nor the wants of the proudest municipalities, nor the emporia of the richest commerce would have supplied that lofty aim which is indispensable for any great intellectual effort. But when, freed from all trammels of use or expense, the object is to erect a casket worthy to enshrine the sacred image of a god whom men feared but adored, the aspiration elevates the work far beyond its useful purpose. It is when men seek to erect a hall in which worshippers may meet to render that homage which is their greatest privilege and their highest aspiration, when all that man can conceive that is great and beautiful is enlisted to create something worthy of the purpose, that temples have been erected which rank among the most successful works man has yet produced. Had any exigencies of use or economy controlled the design of the Parthenon, or of any of our Mediæval cathedrals, they must have taken a much lower place in the scale than they now occupy. Their architects were, however, in fact as free from any utilitarian influences as the poets who composed the ‘Iliad’ or ‘Paradise Lost.’

If what has just been said above is understood, it may be sufficient to make it possible to give a more definite answer than has usually been done to two questions to which hitherto no satisfactory reply has been accorded in modern times. “What,” it is frequently asked, “is the true definition of the word Architecture, or of the Art to which it applies?” “What are the principles which ought to guide us in designing or criticising Architectural objects?”

Fifty years ago the answers to these questions generally were, that Architecture consisted in the closest possible imitation of the forms and orders employed by the Romans; that a church was well designed exactly in the proportion in which it resembled a heathen temple; and 11that the merit of a civic building was to be measured by its imitation, more or less perfect, of some palace or amphitheatre of classic times.

In the beginning of this century these answers were somewhat modified by the publication of Stuart’s works on Athens; the word Grecian was substituted for Roman in all criticisms, and the few forms that remain to us of Grecian art were repeated ad nauseam in buildings of the most heterogeneous class and character.

At the present day churches have been entirely removed from the domain of classic art, and their merit is made to depend on their being correct reproductions of mediæval designs. Museums and town halls still generally adhere to classic forms, alternating between Greek and Roman. In some of our public buildings an attempt has recently been made to reproduce the Middle Ages, while in our palaces and clubhouses that compromise between classicality and common sense which is called Italian is generally adhered to. These, it is evident, are the mere changing fashions of art. There is nothing real or essential in this Babel of styles, and we must go deeper below the surface to enable us to obtain a true definition of the art or of its purposes. Before attempting this, however, it is essential to bear in mind that two wholly different systems of architecture have been followed at different periods in the world’s history.

The first is that which prevailed since the art first dawned, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, in Asia, and in all Europe, during the Middle Ages, and generally in all countries of the world down to the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, and still predominates in remote corners of the globe wherever European civilisation or its influences have not yet penetrated. The other being that which was introduced with the revival of classic literature contemporaneously with the reformation of religion, and still pervades all Europe and wherever European influence has established itself.

In the first period the art of architecture consisted in designing a building so as to be most suitable and convenient for the purposes required, in arranging the parts so as to produce the most stately and ornamental effect consistent with its uses, and in applying to it such ornament as should express and harmonise with the construction, and be appropriate to the purposes of the building; while at the same time the architects took care that the ornament should be the most elegant in itself which it was in their power to design.

Following this system, not only the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Gothic architects, but even the indolent and half-civilised inhabitants of India, the stolid Tartars of Thibet and China, and the savage Mexicans, succeeded in erecting great and beautiful buildings. No race, however rude or remote, has failed, when working on this system, to produce buildings which are admired by all who behold them, and are well worthy of the most attentive consideration. Indeed, it is 12almost impossible to indicate one single building in any part of the world, designed during the prevalence of this true form of art, which was not thought beautiful, not alone by those who erected it, but which does not remain a permanent object of admiration and of study even for strangers in all future ages.

The result of the other system is widely different from this. It has now been practised in Europe for more than three centuries, and by people who have more knowledge of architectural forms, more constructive skill, and more power of combining science and art in effecting a great object, than any people who ever existed before. Notwithstanding this, from the building of St. Peter’s at Rome to that of our own Parliament Houses, not one building has been produced that is admitted to be entirely satisfactory, or which permanently retains a hold on general admiration. Many are large and stately to an extent almost unknown before, and many are ornamented with a profuseness of which no previous examples exist; but with all this, though they conform with the passing fashions of the day, they soon become antiquated and out of date, and men wonder how such a style could ever have been thought beautiful, just as we wonder how any one could have admired the female costumes of the last century which captivated the hearts of our grandfathers.

It does not require us to go very deeply into the philosophy of the subject to find out why this should be the case; the fact simply being that no sham was ever permanently successful, either in morals or in art, and no falsehood ever remained long without being found out, or which, when detected, inevitably did not cease to please. It is literally impossible that we should reproduce either the circumstances or the feelings which gave rise to classical art and made it a reality; and though Gothic art was a thing of our country and of our own race, it belongs to a state of society so totally different from anything that now exists, that any attempt at reproduction now must at best be a masquerade, and never can be a real or earnest form of art. The designers of the Eglinton Tournament carried the system to a perfectly legitimate conclusion when they sought to reproduce the costumes and warlike exercises of our ancestors; and the pre-Raphaelite painters were equally justified in attempting to do in painting that which was done every day in architecture. Both attempts failed signally, because we had progressed in the arts of war and painting, and could easily detect the absurdity of these practices. It is in architecture alone of all the arts that the false system remains, and we do not yet perceive the impossibility of its leading to any satisfactory result.

No. 2.

Bearing all this in mind, let us try if we can come to a clearer definition of what this art really is, and in what its merits consist. Let us suppose the Diagram (Woodcut No. 2) to represent an ordinary 13house, such as is found in many of our London streets. The first division, A, is the most prosaic form of building, no more thought being bestowed on it than if it were a garden wall. The second division, B, is better; the cornices and string-course indicate the levels of the several floors into which the building is divided; the quoins of the door and windows are emphasized by the use of a better or different coloured brick, and the arched forms given to door and window on ground floor suggest increased strength. In the third division, C, this has been carried still further; the rustication of the stonework on the lower storey gives an appearance of greater solidity, and the importance given to the cornices, the addition of architrave mouldings round windows, with pediments to those of the first floor, and the decoration of the parapet carry the house out of the domain of building into that of architecture. The fourth division carries this still farther; the whole design is here divided into three stages—the ground floor being treated as a podium or base to the two floors above, the whole being crowned by an attic storey; greater importance is given to the front by the slight projection of two wings; the entrance doorway is emphasized, and by means of cornices, quoins, and pilasters, a play of light and shade is given to an elevation which virtually lies in one plane. In this instance not only is a greater amount of ornament applied, but the parts are so disposed as in themselves to produce a more agreeable effect; and although the height of the floors remains the same, and the amount of light introduced very nearly so, still the slight grouping of the parts is such as to produce a better class of architecture than could be done by the mere application of any amount of ornament. The diagram deals with one phase of the subject, “a town house,” and with the elevation only, the style being that generally known as Italian; if it is admitted that the last division is an object of architecture, which the first is not, it follows from this analysis that 14architecture commences when some embellishment is added to the building which was not strictly a structural necessity. The value of the embellishment, from an architectural point of view, depends on—the extent to which, in its application, the structural features have been recognised,—the appropriateness of the ornament,—the careful study of proportion and balance of the several parts, and,—in a certain measure, the extent to which some known precedent has been followed.

Recurring, for instance, to the Parthenon, to illustrate this principle farther. The proportions of length to breadth, and of height to both these, are instances of carefully-studied proportion and balance; and still more so is the arrangement of the porticoes and the disposition of the peristyle. If all the pillars were plain square piers, and all the mouldings square and flat, still the Parthenon could not fail, from the mere disposition of its parts, to be a pleasing and imposing building. So it is with a Gothic cathedral. The proportion of length to breadth, the projection of the transepts, the different height of the central and side aisles, the disposition and proportion of the towers, are all instances of proportion and balance, and beautiful even if without ornament. Many of the older abbeys, especially those of the Cistercians, are as devoid of ornament as a modern barn; but from the mere disposition of their parts they are always pleasing and, if large, are imposing objects of architecture. Stonehenge is an instance of ornamental construction wholly without ornament, yet it is almost as imposing an architectural object as any of the same dimensions in any part of the world. It is, however, when ornament is added to this, and when that ornament is elegant itself and appropriate to the construction and to the purposes of the building, that the temple or the cathedral ranks among the highest objects of the art and becomes one of the noblest works of man.

Even without structural decoration, a building may, by mere dint of ornament, become an architectural object, though it is far more difficult to attain good architecture by this means, and in true styles it has seldom been attempted. Still, such a building as the town hall at Louvain, which if stripped of its ornaments would be little better than a factory, by richness and appropriateness of ornament alone has become a very pleasing specimen of the art. In modern times it is too much the fashion to attempt to produce architectural effects not only without attending to ornamental construction, but often in defiance of, and in concealing that which exists. When this is done, the result must be bad art; but nevertheless it is architecture, however execrable it may be.

If these premises are correct, the art of the builder consists in merely putting materials together so as to attain the desired end in the speediest and simplest fashion. The art of the civil or military engineer consists in selecting the best and most appropriate materials 15for the object he has in view, and using these in the most scientific manner, so as to ensure an economical but satisfactory result. Where the engineer leaves off, the art of the architect begins. His object is to arrange the materials of the engineer, not so much with regard to economical as to artistic effects, and by light and shade, and outline, to produce a form that in itself shall be permanently beautiful. He then adds ornament, which by its meaning doubles the effect of the disposition he has just made, and by its elegance throws a charm over the whole composition.

Viewed in this light, it is evident that there are no objects that are usually delegated to the civil engineer which may not be brought within the province of the architect. A bridge, an aqueduct, the embankment of a lake, or the roof of a station, are all as legitimate subjects for architectural ornament as a temple or a palace. They were all so treated by the Romans and in the Middle Ages, and are so treated up to the present day in the remote parts of India, and wherever true art prevails.

It is not essential that the engineer should know anything of architecture, though it is certainly desirable he should do so; but, on the other hand, it is indispensably necessary that the architect should understand construction. Without that knowledge he cannot design; and although it has been conceived by some that it would be better to delegate the mechanical task to the engineer, and so restrict himself entirely to the artistic arrangement and ornamentation of his design, such a course would be fatal to the development of architectural style. It is true that in some of the works above stated, it is generally thought desirable to confide them to engineers; but in the few cases in which architects have been called in to co-operate with them, as in the roofs of the Great Western and Midland Railway Stations, the result has been so satisfactory as to suggest the advantage of such combination. In the Great Exhibition of 1851, the happiest feature, the semicircular roof of the transept, was suggested by the late Sir Charles Barry, and the developments of that form in the nave and transepts of the Crystal Palace constitute still the most beautiful features of that building. In works of a monumental character, such as town-halls, museums, or public galleries, which are designed to last for centuries, the strict economy of material, which is sometimes deemed necessary in engineering works, is not advisable, because mass, stability, and durability—three elements into which we enter later on—are of the very essence of their architectural character. In these and other works of a simple character, such as private houses, the calculations are not of so elaborate a nature as to be outside the architect’s knowledge; and although of late years the use of iron girders, stanchions, and columns has introduced a new factor among building materials which occasionally may call for the assistance of an expert to 16substantiate the architect’s calculations, it has hitherto been the custom to conceal these features, so that they have not entered the phase of architectural design. In course of time, when an increased knowledge of the properties of iron is acquired, we may hope to see a great development in its artistic treatment, so that it may eventually rise to the dignity and assume the character, which in the architectural styles of bygone times, all other materials have reached.

In addition, however, to the convenient arrangement and artistic treatment of a building, and its proper and sound construction, there is still a third element which requires the special endowment of an artist for its exercise. No architectural object can be considered as complete, or as having attained the highest excellence till it is endowed with a voice through the aid of phonetic sculpture and painting.

In a few words, therefore, a perfect building may be defined as one that combines:—

Besides these, however, which are the principal theoretic characteristics of architecture, there are several minor technical principles which it may be convenient to enumerate before proceeding farther.

It may also be well to give such examples as shall make what has just been indicated theoretically, clearer than can be done by the mere enunciation of abstract principles.

The first and most obvious element of architectural grandeur is size—a large edifice being always more imposing than a small one; and when the art displayed in two buildings is equal, their effect is almost in the direct ratio of their dimensions. In other words, if one temple or church is twice or three times as large as another, it is twice or three times as grand or as effective. The Temple of Theseus differs very little, except in dimensions, from the Parthenon, and, except in that respect, hardly differed at all from the Temple of Jupiter at Elis; but because of its smaller size it must rank lower than the greater examples. In our own country many of our smaller abbeys or parish 17churches display as great beauty of design or detail as our noblest cathedrals, but, from their dimensions alone, they are insignificant in comparison, and the traveller passes them by, while he stands awe-struck before the portals or under the vault of the larger edifices.

The pyramids of Egypt, the topes of the Buddhists, the mounds of the Etruscans, depend almost wholly for their effect on their dimensions. The Romans understood to perfection the value of this element, and used it in its most unsophisticated simplicity to obtain the effect they desired. In the Middle Ages the architects not only aspired to the erection of colossal edifices, but they learnt how they might greatly increase the apparent dimensions of a building by a scientific disposition of the parts and a skilful arrangement of ornament, thereby making it look very much larger than it really was. It is, in fact, the most obvious and most certain, though it must be confessed perhaps the most vulgar, means of obtaining architectural grandeur; but a true and perfect example can never be produced by dependence on this alone, and it is only when size is combined with beauty of proportion and elegance of ornament that perfection in architectural art is attained.

Next to size the most important element is stability. By this is meant, not merely the strength required to support the roof or to resist the various thrusts and pressures, but that excess of strength over mere mechanical requirement which is necessary thoroughly to satisfy the mind, and to give to the building a monumental character, with an appearance that it could resist the shocks of time or the violence of man for ages yet to come.

No people understood the value of this so well as the Egyptians. The form of the Pyramids is designed wholly with reference to stability, and even the Hypostyle Hall at Karnac excites admiration far more by its massiveness and strength, and its apparent eternity of duration, than by any other element of design. In the Hall all utilitarian exigencies and many other obvious means of effect are sacrificed to these, and with such success that after more than 3000 years’ duration still enough remains to excite the admiration which even the most unpoetical spectators cannot withhold from its beauties.

In a more refined style much of the beauty of the Parthenon arises from this cause. The area of each of the pillars in the portico of the Pantheon at Rome is under 20 feet, that of those of the Parthenon is over 33 feet, and, considering how much taller the former are than the latter, it may be said that the pillars at Athens are twice as massive as those of the Roman temple, yet the latter have sufficed not only for the mechanical, but for many points of artistic stability; but the strength and solidity of the porticos of the Parthenon, without taking 18into consideration its other points of superiority, must always render it more beautiful than the other.

The massiveness which the Normans and other early Gothic builders imparted to their edifices arose more from clumsiness and want of constructive skill than from design; but, though arising from so ignoble a cause, its effect is always grand, and the rude Norman nave often surpasses in grandeur the airy and elegant choir which was afterwards added to it. In our own country no building is more entirely satisfactory than the nave at Winchester, where the width of the pillars exceeds that of the aisles, and the whole is Norman in outline, though Gothic in detail. On the other hand no building of its dimensions and beauty of detail can well be so unsatisfactory as the choir at Beauvais. Though it has stood the test of centuries, it looks so frail, requires so many props to keep it up, and is so evidently an overstrained exercise of mechanical cleverness, that though it may excite wonder as an architectural tour de force, it never can satisfy the mind of the true artist, or please to the same extent as less ambitious examples.

Even when we descend to the lowest walks of architecture we find this principle prevailing. It would require an immense amount of design and good taste to make the thin walls and thinner roof of a brick and slated cottage look as picturesque or so well as one built of rubble-stone, or even with mud walls, and a thatched roof: the thickness and solidity of the one must always be more satisfactory than the apparent flimsiness of the other. Here, as in most cases, necessity controls the architect; but when fettered by no utilitarian exigencies, there is no safer or readier means of obtaining an effect than this, and when effect alone is sought it is almost impossible for an architect to err in giving too much solidity to his building. Size and stability are alone sufficient to produce grandeur in architectural design, and, where sublimity is aimed at, they are the two elements most essential to its production, and are indeed the two without which it cannot possibly be attained.

As the complement to stability, the length of time during which architectural objects are calculated to endure confers on them an impress of durability which can hardly be attained by any of the sister arts. Sculpture may endure as long, and some of the Egyptian examples of that art found near the Pyramids are as old as anything in that country, but it is not their age that impresses us so much as the story they have to tell. The Pyramids, on the other hand, in the majesty of their simple Technic grandeur, do challenge a quasi-eternity of duration with a distinctness that is most impressive, and 19which there, as elsewhere, is one of the most powerful elements of architectural expression.

When Horace sang—

he overlooked the fact that long before Troy was dreamt of, Egyptian kings had raised pyramids which endure to the present day, and the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties had filled the valley of the Upper Nile with temples and palaces and tombs which tell us not only the names of their founders, but reveal to us their thoughts and aspirations with a distinctness that no sacred poet could as well convey. From that time onward the architects have covered the world with monuments that still remain on the spot where they were erected, and tell all, who are sufficiently instructed to read their riddles aright, what nations once occupied these spots, what degree of civilisation they had reached, and how, in erecting these monuments on which we now gaze, they had attained that quasi-immortality after which they hankered.

Sculpture and painting, when allied with architecture, may endure as long, but their aim is not to convey to the mind the impression of durability which is so strongly felt in the presence of the more massive works of architectural art. Even when ruined and in decay the buildings are almost equally impressive, while ruined sculptures or paintings are generally far from being pleasing objects, and, whatever their other merits may be, certainly miss that impression obtained from the durability of architectural objects.

Another very obvious mode of obtaining architectural effect is by the largeness or costliness of the materials employed. A terrace, or even a wall, if composed of large stones, is in itself an object of considerable grandeur, while one of the same lineal dimensions and of the same design, if composed of brick or rubble, may appear a very contemptible object.

Like all the more obvious means of architectural effect, the Egyptians seized on this and carried it to its utmost legitimate extent. All their buildings, as well as their colossi and obelisks, owe much of their grandeur to the magnitude of the materials employed in their construction. The works called Cyclopean found in Italy and Greece have no other element of grandeur than the size of the stones or rather masses of rock which the builders of that age were in the habit of using. In Jerusalem nothing was so much insisted upon by the old 20writers, or is so much admired now, as the largeness of the stones employed in the building of the Temple and its substructions.

We can well believe how much value was attached to this when we find that in the neighbouring city of Baalbec stones were used of between 60 and 70 ft. in length, weighing as much as the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, for the mere bonding course of a terrace wall. Even in a more refined style of architecture, a pillar, the shaft of which is of a single stone, or a lintel or architrave of one block, is always a grander and more beautiful object than if composed of a number of smaller parts. Among modern buildings, the poverty-stricken design of the church of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg is redeemed by the grandeur of its monolithic columns, whilst the beautiful design of the Madeleine at Paris is destroyed by the smallness of the materials in which it is expressed. It is easy to see that this arises from the same feeling to which massiveness and stability address themselves. It is the expression of giant power and the apparent eternity of duration which they convey; and in whatever form that may be presented to the human mind, it always produces a sentiment tending towards sublimity, which is the highest effect at which architecture or any other art can aim.

The Gothic architects ignored this element of grandeur altogether, and sought to replace it by the display of constructive skill in the employment of the smaller materials they used, but it is extremely questionable whether in so doing they did not miss one of the most obvious and most important principles of architectural design.

Besides these, value in the mere material is a great element in architectural effect. We all, for instance, admire an ornament of pure gold more than one that is only silver gilt, though few can detect the difference. Persons will travel hundreds of miles to see a great diamond or wonderful pearl, who would not go as many yards to see paste models of them, though if the two were laid together on the table very few indeed could distinguish the real from the counterfeit.

When we come to consider such buildings as the cathedral at Milan or the Taje Mehal at Agra, there can be no doubt but that the beauty of the material of which they are composed adds very much to the admiration they excite. In the latter case the precious stones with which the ornamental parts of the design are inlaid, convey an impression of grandeur almost as directly as their beauty of outline.

It is, generally speaking, because of its greater preciousness that we admire a marble building more than one of stone, though the colour of the latter may be really as beautiful and the material at least as durable. In the same manner a stone edifice is preferred to one of brick, and brick to wood and plaster; but even these conditions may be reversed by the mere question of value. If, for instance, a brick and a stone edifice stand close together, the design of both being equally appropriate 21to the material employed, our judgment may be reversed if the bricks are so beautifully moulded, or made of such precious clay, or so carefully laid, that the brick edifice costs twice as much as the other; in that case we should look with more respect and admiration on the artificial than on the natural material. From the same reason many elaborately carved wooden buildings, notwithstanding the smallness of their parts and their perishable nature, are more to be admired than larger and more monumental structures, and this merely in consequence of the evidence of labour and consequent cost that have been bestowed upon them.

Irrespective of these considerations, many building materials are invaluable from their own intrinsic merits. Granite is one of the best known, from its hardness and durability, marble from the exquisite polish it takes, and for its colour, which for internal decoration is a property that can hardly be over-estimated. Stone is valuable on account of the largeness of the blocks that can be obtained and because it easily receives a polish sufficient for external purposes. Bricks are excellent for their cheapness and the facility with which they can be used, and they may also be moulded into forms of great elegance, so that beauty may be easily attained; but sublimity is nearly impossible in brickwork, without at least such dimensions as have rarely been accomplished by man. The smallness of the material is such a manifest incongruity with largeness of the parts, that even the Romans, though they tried hard, could never quite overcome the difficulty.

Plaster is another artificial material. Except in monumental erections it is superior to stone for internal purposes, and always better than brick from the uniformity and smoothness of its surface, the facility with which it is moulded, and its capability of receiving painted or other decorations to any extent.

Wood should be used externally only on the smallest and least monumental class of buildings, and even internally is generally inferior to plaster. It is dark in colour, liable to warp and split, and combustible, which are all serious objections to its use, except for flooring, doors, and such purposes as it is now generally applied to.

Cast iron is another material rarely brought into use, though more precious than any of those above enumerated, and possessing more strength, though probably less durability. Where lightness combined with strength is required, it is invaluable, but though it can be moulded into any form of beauty that may be designed, it has hardly yet ever been so used as to allow of its architectural qualities being appreciated.

All these materials are nearly equally good when used honestly each for the purpose for which it is best adapted; they all become bad either when employed for a purpose for which they are not appropriate, or when one material is substituted in the place of or to imitate 22another. Grandeur and sublimity can only be reached by the more durable and more massive class of materials, but beauty and elegance are attainable in all, and the range of architectural design is so extensive that it is absurd to limit it to one class either of natural or of artificial materials, or to attempt to prescribe the use of some and to insist on that of others, for purposes to which they are manifestly inapplicable.

Construction has been shown to be the chief aim and object of the engineer; with him it is all in all, and to construct scientifically and at the same time economically is the beginning and end of his endeavours. It is far otherwise with the architect. Construction ought to be his handmaid, useful to assist him in carrying out his design, but never his mistress, controlling him in the execution of that which he would otherwise think expedient. An architect ought always to allow himself such a margin of strength that he may disregard or play with his construction, and in nine cases out of ten the money spent in obtaining this solidity will be more effective architecturally than twice the amount expended on ornament, however elegant or appropriate that may be.

So convinced were the Egyptians and Greeks of this principle, that they never used any other constructive expedient than a perpendicular wall or prop, supporting a horizontal beam; and half the satisfactory effect of their buildings arises from their adhering to this simple though expensive mode of construction. They were perfectly acquainted with the use of the arch and its properties, but they knew that its employment would introduce complexity and confusion into their designs, and therefore they wisely rejected it. Even to the present day the Hindus refuse to use the arch, though it has long been employed in their country by the Mahometans. As they quaintly express it, “An arch never sleeps;” and it is true that by its thrust and pressure it is always tending to tear a building to pieces; in spite of all counterpoises, whenever the smallest damage is done, it hastens the ruin of a building, which, if more simply constructed, might last for ages.

The Romans were the first who introduced a more complicated style. They wanted larger and more complex buildings than had been before required, and they employed brick and concrete to a great extent even in their temples and most monumental buildings. They obtained both space and variety by these means, with comparatively little trouble or expense; but we miss in all their works that repose and harmony which is the great charm that pervades the buildings of their predecessors.

23The Gothic architects went even beyond the Romans in this respect. They prided themselves on their constructive skill, and paraded it on all occasions, and often to an extent very destructive of true architectural design. The lower storey of a French cathedral is generally very satisfactory; the walls are thick and solid, and the buttresses, when not choked up with chapels, just sufficient for shadow and relief; but the architects of that country were seized with a mania for clerestories of gigantic height, which should appear internally mere walls of painted glass divided by mullions. This could only be effected either by encumbering the floor of the church with piers of inconvenient thickness or by a system of buttressing outside. The latter was the expedient adopted; but notwithstanding the ingenuity with which it was carried out, and the elegance of many of the forms and ornaments used, it was singularly destructive of true architectural effect. It not only produces confusion of outline and a total want of repose, but it is eminently suggestive of weakness, and one cannot help feeling that if one of these props were removed, the whole would tumble down like a house of cards.

This was hardly ever the case in England: the less ambitious dimensions employed in this country enabled the architects to dispense in a great measure with these adjuncts, and when flying buttresses are used, they look more as if employed to suggest the idea of perfect security than as necessary to stability. Owing to this cause the French have never been able to construct a satisfactory vault: in consequence of the weakness of their supports they were forced to stilt, twist, and dome them to a most unpleasing extent, and to attend to constructive instead of artistic necessities. With the English architects this never was the case; they were always able to design their vaults in such forms as they thought would be most beautiful artistically, and, owing to the greater solidity of their supports, to carry them out as at first designed.^[12]

It was left for the Germans to carry this system to its acme of absurdity. Half the merit of the old Round arched Gothic cathedrals on the Rhine consists in their solidity and the repose they display in every part. Their walls and other essential parts are always in themselves sufficient to support the roofs and vaults, and no constructive contrivance is seen anywhere; but when the Germans adopted the pointed style, their builders—they can hardly be called architects—seemed to think that the whole art consisted in supporting the widest possible vaults on the thinnest possible pillars and in constructing the tallest windows with the most attenuated mullions. The consequence 24is, that though their constructive skill still excites the wonder of the mason or the engineer, the artist or the architect turns from the cold vaults and lean piers of their later cathedrals with a painful feeling of unsatisfied expectation, and wonders why such dimensions and such details should produce a result so utterly unsatisfactory.

So many circumstances require to be taken into consideration, that it is impossible to prescribe any general rules in such a subject as this, but the following table will explain to a certain extent the ratio of the area to the points of support in sixteen of the principal buildings of the world.^[13] As far as it goes, it tends to prove that the satisfactory architectural effect of a building is nearly in the inverse ratio to the mechanical cleverness displayed in its construction.

At the head of the list stands the Hypostyle Hall, and next to it practically is the Parthenon, which being the only wooden-roofed building in the list, its ratio of support in proportion to the work required is nearly as great as that of the Temple at Karnac. Spires only wants better details to be one of the grandest edifices in Europe, and Bourges, Paris, Chartres, and Salisbury are among the most satisfactory Gothic cathedrals we possess. St. Ouen, notwithstanding all its beauty of detail and design, fails in this one point, and is certainly deficient 25in solidity. Cologne and Milan would both be very much improved by greater massiveness: and at York the lightness of the supports is carried so far that it never can be completed with the vaulted roof originally designed, for the nave at least.

The four great Renaissance cathedrals, at Rome, Florence, London, and Paris, enumerated in this list, have quite sufficient strength for architectural effect, but the value of this is lost from concealed construction, and because the supports are generally grouped into a few great masses, the dimensions of which cannot be estimated by the eye. A Gothic architect would have divided these masses into twice or three times the number of the piers used in these churches, and by employing ornament designed to display and accentuate the construction, would have rendered these buildings far more satisfactory than they are.

In this respect the great art of the architect consists in obtaining the greatest possible amount of unencumbered space internally, consistent in the first place with the requisite amount of permanent mechanical stability, and next with such an appearance of superfluity of strength as shall satisfy the mind that the building is perfectly secure and calculated to last for ages.

It is extremely difficult to lay down any general rules as to the forms best adapted to architectural purposes, as the value of a form in architecture depends wholly on the position in which it is placed and the use to which it is applied. There is in consequence no prescribed form, however ugly it may appear at present, that may not one day be found to be the very best for a given purpose; and, in like manner, none of those most admired which may not become absolutely offensive when used in a manner for which they are unsuited. In itself no simple form seems to have any inherent value of its own, and it is only by combination of one with another that they become effective. If, for instance, we take a series of twenty or thirty figures, placing a cube at one end as the most solid of angular and a sphere at the other as the most perfect of round shapes, it would be easy to cut off the angles of the cube in successive gradations till it became a polygon of so many sides as to be nearly curvilinear. On the other hand by modifying the sphere through all the gradations of conic sections, it might meet the other series in the centre without there being any abrupt distinction between them. Such a series might be compared to the notes of a piano. We cannot say that any one of the base or treble notes is in itself more beautiful than the others. It is only by a combination of several notes that harmony is produced, and gentle or brilliant melodies by their fading into one another, or by strongly 26marked contrasts. So it is with forms: the square and angular are expressive of strength and power; curves of softness and elegance; and beauty is produced by effective combination of the right-lined with the curvilinear. It is always thus in nature. Rocks and all the harder substances are rough and angular, and marked by strong contrasts and deep lines. Among trees, the oak is rugged, and its branches are at right angles to its stem, or to one another. The lines of the willow are rounded, and flowing. The forms of children and women are round and full, and free from violent contrasts; those of men are abrupt, hard, and angular in proportion to the vigour and strength of their frame.

In consequence of these properties, as a general rule the square or angular parts ought always to be placed below, where strength is wanted, and the rounded above. If, for instance, a tower is to be built, the lower storey should not only be square, but should be marked by buttresses, or other strong lines, and the masonry rusticated, so as to convey even a greater appearance of strength. Above this, if the square form is still retained, it may be with more elegance and less accentuation. The form may then change to an octagon, that to a polygon of sixteen sides, and then be surmounted by a circular form of any sort. These conditions are not absolute, but the reverse arrangement would be manifestly absurd. A tower with a circular base and a square upper storey is what almost no art could render tolerable, while the other pleases by its innate fitness without any extraordinary effort of design.

On the other hand, round pillars are more pleasing as supports for a square architrave, not so much from any inherent fitness for the purpose as from the effect of contrast, and flat friezes are preferable to curved ones of the late Roman styles from the same cause. The angular mouldings introduced among the circular shafts of a Gothic coupled pillar, add immensely to the brilliancy of effect. Where everything is square and rugged, as in a Druidical trilithon, the effect may be sublime, but it cannot be elegant; where everything is rounded, as in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the perfection of elegance may be attained, but never sublimity. Perfection, as usual, lies between these extremes.

The properties above enumerated may be characterised as the mechanical principles of design. Size, stability, construction, material, and many such, are elements at the command of the engineer or mason, as well as of the architect, and a building remarkable for these properties only, cannot be said to rise above the lowest grade of architectural excellence. They are invaluable adjuncts in the 27hands of the true artist, but ought never to be the principal elements of design.

After these, the two most important resources at the command of the architect are Proportion and Ornament; the former enabling him to construct ornamentally, the latter to ornament his construction; both require knowledge and thought, and can only be properly applied by one thoroughly imbued with the true principles of architectural design.

As proportion, to be good, must be modified by every varying exigence of a design, it is of course impossible to lay down any general rules which shall hold good in all cases; but a few of its principles are obvious enough, and can be defined so as to enable us to judge how far they have been successfully carried out in the various buildings enumerated in the following pages.

To take first the simplest form of the proposition, let us suppose a room built, which shall be an exact cube—of say 20 feet each way—such a proportion must be bad and inartistic; and besides, the height is too great for the other dimensions, apparently because it is impossible to get far enough away to embrace the whole wall at one view, or to see the springing of the roof, without throwing the head back and looking upwards. If the height were exaggerated to thirty or forty feet, the disproportion would be so striking, that no art could render it agreeable. As a general rule, a room square in plan is never pleasing. It is always better that one side should be longer than the other, so as to give a little variety to the design. Once and a half the width has often been recommended, and with every increase of length an increase of height is not only allowable, but indispensable. Some such rule as the following seems to meet most cases:—“The height of a room ought to be equal to half its width, plus the square root of its length.” Thus a room 20 feet square ought to be between 14 and 15 feet high; if its length be increased to 40 feet, its height must be at least 161⁄2; if 100, certainly not less than 20. If we proceed further, and make the height actually exceed the width, the effect is that of making it look narrow. As a general rule, and especially in all extreme cases, by adding to one dimension, we take away in appearance from the others. Thus, if we take a room 20 feet wide and 30 or 40 feet in height, we make it narrow; if 40 wide and 20 high, we make a low room. By increasing the length, we diminish the other two dimensions.

This, however, is merely speaking of plain rooms with plain walls, and an architect may be forced to construct rooms of all sorts of unpleasing dimensions, but it is here that his art comes to his aid, and he must be very little of an artist if he cannot conceal, even when unable entirely to counteract, the defects of his dimensions. A room, for instance, that is a perfect cube of 20 feet may be made to look as low as one only 15 feet high, by using a strongly marked 28horizontal decoration, by breaking the wall into different heights, by marking strongly the horizontal proportions, and obliterating as far as possible all vertical lines. The reverse process will make a room only 10 feet high look as lofty as one of 15.

Even the same wall-paper (if of strongly marked lines) if pasted on the sides of two rooms exactly similar in dimensions, but with the lines vertical in the one case, in the other horizontal, will alter the apparent dimensions of them by several feet. If a room is too high, it is easy to correct this by carrying a bold cornice to the height required, and stopping there the vertical lines of the wall, and above this coving the roof, or using some device which shall mark a distinction from the walls, and the defect may become a beauty. In like manner, if a room is too long for its other dimensions, this is easily remedied either by breaks in the walls where these can be obtained, or by screens of columns across its width, or by only breaking the height of the roof. Anything which will divide the length into compartments will effect this. The width, if in excess, is easily remedied by dividing it, as the Gothic architects did, into aisles. Thus a room 50 feet wide and 30 high, may easily be restored to proportion by cutting off 10 or 12 feet on each side, and lowering the roofs of the side compartments, to say 20 feet. If great stability is not required, this can be done without encumbering the floor with many points of support. The greater the number used the more easily the effect is obtained, but it can be done almost without them.

Externally it is easier to remedy defects of proportion than it is internally. It is easier than on the inside to increase the apparent height by strongly marked vertical lines, or to bring it down by the employment of a horizontal decoration.

No. 3.

If the length of a building is too great, this is easily remedied by projections, or by breaking up the length into square divisions. Thus, A A is a long building, but B B is a square one, or practically (owing to the perspective) less than a square in length, in any direction at right angles to the line of vision; or, in other words, to a spectator at A’ the building would look as if shorter in the direction of B B than in that of A A, owing to the largeness and importance of the part nearest the eye. If 100 feet in length by 50 feet high is a pleasing dimension for a certain design, and it is required that the building should be 500 feet long, it is only necessary to break it into five parts, and throw three back and two forward, or the contrary, and the proportion becomes as before.

The Egyptians hardly studied the science of proportion at all; 29they gained their effects by simpler and more obvious means. The Greeks were masters in this as in everything else, but they used the resources of the art with extreme sobriety—externally at least—dreading to disturb that simplicity which is so essential to sublimity in architecture. But internally, where sublimity was not attainable with the dimensions they employed, they divided the cells of their temples into three aisles, and the height into two, by placing two ranges of columns one above the other. By these means they were enabled to use such a number of small parts as to increase the apparent size most considerably, and at the same time to give greater apparent magnitude to the statue, which was the principal object for which the temple was erected.

The Romans do not seem to have troubled themselves with the science of proportion in the designs of their buildings, though nothing can well be more exquisite than the harmony that exists between the parts in their orders, and generally in their details. During the Middle Ages, however, we find, from first to last, the most earnest attention paid to it, and half the beauty of the buildings of that age is owing to the successful results to which the architects carried their experiments in balancing the parts of their structures the one against the other, so as to produce that harmony we so much admire in them.

No. 4.

The first great invention of the Gothic architects (though of Greek origin) was that of dividing the breadth of the building internally into three aisles, and making the central one higher and wider than those on each side. By this means height and length were obtained at the expense of width: this latter, however, is never a valuable property artistically, though it may be indispensable for the utilitarian exigencies of the building. They next sought to increase still further the height of the central aisle by dividing its sides into three equal portions which by contrast added very much to the effect: but the monotony of this arrangement was soon apparent: besides, it was perceived that the side aisles were so low as not to come into direct comparison with the central nave. To remedy this they gradually increased its dimensions, and at last hit on something very like the following proportions. They made the height of the side aisle half that of the central (the width being also in the same proportion); the remaining portions they divided into three, making the triforium one-third, the clerestory two-thirds of the whole. Thus the three divisions are in the proportion of 1, 2, and 3, each giving value to the other, and the whole adding very considerably to all the apparent dimensions of 30the interior. It would have been easy to have carried the system further and, by increasing the number of the pillars longitudinally and the number of divisions vertically, to have added considerably to even this appearance of size; but it would then have been at the expense of simplicity and grandeur: and though the building might have looked larger, the beauty of the design would have been destroyed.

One of the most striking exemplifications of the perfection of the Gothic architects in this department of their art is shown in their employment of towers and spires. As a general rule, placing a tall building in juxtaposition with a low one exaggerates the height of the one and the lowness of the other; and as it was by no means the object of the architects to sacrifice their churches for their towers, it required all their art to raise noble spires without doing this. In the best designs they effected it by bold buttresses below, and the moment the tower got free of the building, by changing it to an octagon and cutting it up by pinnacles, and lastly by changing its form into that of a spire, using generally smaller parts than are found in the church. By these devices they prevented the spire from competing in any way with the church. On the contrary, a spire or group of spires gave dignity and height to the whole design, without deducting from any of its dimensions.

The city of Paris contains an instructive exemplification of these doctrines—the façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (exclusive of the upper storey of the towers), and the Arc de l’Etoile being two buildings of exactly the same dimensions; yet any one who is not aware of this fact would certainly estimate the dimensions of the cathedral as at least a third, if not a half, in excess of the other. It may be said that the arch gains in sublimity and grandeur what it loses in apparent dimensions by the simplicity of its parts. The façade of the cathedral, though far from one of the best in France, is by no means deficient in grandeur; and had it been as free from the trammels of utilitarianism as the arch, might easily have been made as simple and as grand, without losing its apparent size. In the other case, by employing in the arch the principles which the Gothic architects elaborated with such pains, the apparent dimensions might have been increased without detracting from its solidity, and it might thus have been rendered one of the sublimest buildings in the world.

The interior of St. Peter’s at Rome is an example of the neglect of these principles. Its great nave is divided into only four bays, and the proportions and ornaments of these, borrowed generally from external architecture, are so gigantic, that it is difficult to realise the true dimensions of the church, except by the study of the plan; and it is not too much to assert, that had a cathedral of these 31dimensions been built in the true Gothic style, during the 13th or 14th century, it would have appeared as if from one-third to one-half larger, and might have been the most sublime, whereas St. Peter’s is now only the largest temple ever erected.

It would be easy to multiply examples to show to what perfection the science of proportion was carried by the experimental processes above described during the existence of the true styles of architecture, and how satisfactory the result is, even upon those who are not aware of the cause; and, on the other hand, how miserable are the failures that result either from the ignorance or neglect of its rules. Enough, it is hoped, has been said to show that not only are the apparent proportions of a building very much under the control of an architect independent of its lineal dimensions, but also that he has it in his power so to proportion every part as to give value to all those around it, thus producing that harmony which in architecture, as well as in music or in painting, is the very essence of a true or satisfactory utterance.

Architectural ornament is of two kinds, constructive and decorative. By the former is meant all those contrivances, such as capitals, brackets, vaulting shafts, and the like, which serve to explain or give expression to the construction; by the latter, such as mouldings, frets, foliage, &c., which give grace and life either to the actual constructive forms, or to the constructive decoration.

In mere building or engineering, the construction being all in all, it is left to tell its own tale in its own prosaic nakedness; but in true architecture construction is always subordinate, and as architectural buildings ought always to possess an excess of strength it need not show itself unless desired; but even in an artistic point of view it always is expedient to express it. The vault, for instance, of a Gothic cathedral might just as easily spring from a bracket or a corbel as from a shaft, and in early experiments this was often tried; but the effect was unsatisfactory, and a vaulting shaft was carried down first to the capital of the pillar, and afterwards to the floor: by this means the eye was satisfied, the thin reed-like shafts being sufficient to explain that the vault rested on the solid ground, and an apparent propriety and stability were given to the whole. These shafts not being necessary constructively, the artist could make them of any form or size he thought most proper, and consequently, instead of one he generally used three small shafts tied together at various intervals. Afterwards merely a group of graceful mouldings was employed, which satisfied not only the exigencies of ornamental construction, but became a real and essential decorative feature of the building.

32In like manner it was good architecture to use flying buttresses, even where they were not essential to stability. They explained externally that the building was vaulted, and that its thrusts were abutted and stability secured. The mistake in their employment was where they became so essential to security, that the constructive necessities controlled the artistic propriety of the design, and the architect found himself compelled to employ either a greater number, or buttresses of greater strength than he would have desired had he been able to dispense with them.

The architecture of the Greeks was so simple, that they required few artifices to explain their construction; but in their triglyphs their mutules, the form of their cornices and other devices, they took pains to explain, not only that these parts had originally been of wood but that the temple still retained its wooden roof. Had they ever adopted a vault, they would have employed a totally different system of decoration. Having no constructive use whatever, these parts were wholly under the control of the architects, and they consequently became the beautiful things we now so much admire.

With their more complicated style the Romans introduced many new modes of constructive decoration. They were the first to employ vaulting shafts. In all the great halls of their Baths, or of their vaulted Basilicas, they applied a Corinthian pillar as a vaulting shaft to the front of the pier from which the arch appears to spring, though the latter really supported the vault. All the pillars have now been removed, but without at all interfering with the stability of the vaults; they were mere decorative features to explain the construction, but indispensable for that purpose. The Romans also suggested most of the other decorative inventions of the Middle Ages, but their architecture never reached beyond the stage of transition. It was left for the Gothic architects freely to elaborate this mode of architectural effect, and they carried it to an extent never dreamt of before; but it is to this that their buildings owe at least half the beauty they possess.

The same system of course applies to dwelling-houses, and to the meanest objects of architectural art. The string-course that marks externally the floor-line of the different storeys is as legitimate and indispensable an ornament as a vaulting shaft, and it would also be well that the windows should be grouped so as to indicate the size of the rooms, and at least a plain space left where a partition wall abuts, or better still a pilaster or buttress, or line of some sort, ought to mark externally that feature of internal construction.

The cornice is as indispensable a termination of the wall as the capital is of a pillar; and suggests not only an appropriate support for the roof, but eaves to throw the rain off the wall. The same is true with regard to pediments or caps over windows: they suggest a means 33of protecting an opening from the wet; and porches over doorways are equally obvious contrivances. Everything, in short, which is actually constructive, or which suggests what was or may be a constructive expedient, is a legitimate object of decoration, and affords the architect unlimited scope for the display of taste and skill, without going out of his way to seek it.

The difficulty in applying ornaments borrowed from other styles is, that although they all suggest construction, it is not the construction of the buildings to which they are applied. To use Pugin’s clever antithesis, “they are constructed ornament, not ornamented construction,” and as such can never satisfy the mind. However beautiful in themselves, they are out of place, there is no real or apparent use for their being there; and, in an art so essentially founded on utilitarian principles and common sense as architecture is, any offence against constructive propriety is utterly intolerable.

The other class, or decorative ornaments, are forms invented for the purpose, either mere lithic forms, or copied from the vegetable kingdom, and applied so as to give elegance or brilliancy to the constructive decoration just described.

The first and most obvious of these are mere mouldings, known to architects as Scotias, Cavettos, Ogees, Toruses, Rolls, &c.—curves which, used in various proportions either horizontally or vertically, produce when artistically combined, the most pleasing effect.

In conjunction with these, it is usual to employ a purely conventional class of ornament, such as frets, scrolls, or those known as the bead and reel, or egg and dart mouldings; or in Gothic architecture the billet or dog-tooth or all the thousand and one forms that were invented during the Middle Ages.

In certain styles of art, vegetable forms are employed even more frequently than those last described. Among these, perhaps the most beautiful and perfect ever invented was that known as the honeysuckle ornament, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians, but made so peculiarly their own. It has all the conventional character of a purely lithic, with all the grace of a vegetable form; and, as used with the Ionic order, is more nearly perfect than any other known.

The Romans made a step further towards a more direct imitation of nature in their employment of the acanthus leaf. As applied to a capital, or where the constructive form of the bell beneath it is still distinctly seen, it is not only unobjectionable, but productive of the most pleasing effect. Indeed it is doubtful if anything of its class has yet been invented so entirely satisfactory as the Roman Corinthian order, as found, for instance, in the so-called Temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. The proportions of the order have never yet been excelled, and there is just that balance between imitation of 34nature and conventionality which is indispensable. It is not so pure or perfect as a Grecian order, but as an example of rich decoration applied to an architectural order it is unsurpassed.

With their disregard of precedent and untrammelled wildness of imagination, the Gothic architects tried every form of vegetable ornament, from the purest conventionalism, where the vegetable form can hardly be recognised, to the most literal imitation of nature.

While confining himself to purely lithic forms, an architect can never sin against good taste, though he may miss many beauties; with the latter class of ornament he is always in danger of offence, and few have ever employed it without falling into mistakes. In the first place, because it is impossible to imitate perfectly foliage and flowers in stone; and secondly, because if the pliant forms of plants are made to support, or do the work of, hard stone, the incongruity is immediately apparent, and the more perfect the imitation the greater the mistake.

No. 5.

No. 6.

In the instance (Woodcut No. 5), any amount of literal imitation that the sculptor thought proper may be indulged in, because in it the stone construction is so apparent everywhere, that the vegetable form is the merest supplement conceivable; or in a hollow moulding round a doorway, a vine may be sculptured with any degree of imitation that can be employed; for as it has no more work to do than the object represented would have in the same situation, it is a mere adjunct, a statue of a plant placed in a niche, as we might use the statue of a man: but if in the woodcut (No. 6) imitations of real leaves were used to support the upper moulding, the effect would not be so satisfactory; indeed it is questionable if in both these last examples a little more conventionality would not be desirable.

In too many instances, even in the best Gothic architecture, the construction is so overlaid by imitative vegetable forms as to be concealed, and the work is apparently done by leaves or twigs, but in the earliest and purest style this is almost never the case. As a general 35rule it may be asserted that the best lithic ornaments are those which approach nearest to the grace and pliancy of plants, and that the best vegetable forms are those which most resemble the regularity and symmetry of such as are purely conventional.

Although the Greeks in one or two instances employed human figures to support entablatures or beams, the good taste of such an arrangement is more than questionable. They borrowed it, with the Ionic order, from the Assyrians, with whom the employment of caryatides and animal forms was the rule, not the exception, in contradistinction from the Egyptians, who never adopted this practice.^[14] Even the Romans avoided this mistake, and the Gothic architects also as a general rule kept quite clear of it. Whenever they did employ ornamented figures for architectural purposes, they were either monsters, as in gargoyles or griffons; or sometimes, in a spirit of caricature, they used dwarfs or deformities of various sorts; but their sculpture, properly so called, was always provided with a niche or pedestal, where it might have been placed after the building was complete, or from which it might be removed without interfering with the architecture.

Colour is one of the most invaluable elements placed at the command of the architect to enable him to give grace or finish to his designs. From its nature it is of course only an accessory, or mere ornament; but there is nothing that enables him to express his meaning so cheaply and easily, and at the same time with such brilliancy and effect. For an interior it is absolutely indispensable; and no apartment can be said to be complete till it has received its finishing touches from the hand of the painter. Whether exteriors ought or ought not to be similarly treated admits of more doubt.

Internally the architect has complete command of the situation: he can suit his design to his colours, or his colours to his design. Walls, roof, floor, furniture, are all at his disposal, and he can shut out any discordant element that would interfere with the desired effect.

Externally this is seldom, if ever the case. A façade that looks brilliant and well in noonday sun may be utterly out of harmony with a cold grey sky, or with the warm glow of a setting sun full upon it: and unless all other buildings and objects are toned into accordance with it, the effect can seldom be harmonious.

There can be now no reasonable doubt that the Greeks painted their temples both internally and externally, but as a general rule 36they always placed them on heights where they could only be seen relieved against the sky; and they could depend on an atmosphere of almost uniform, unvarying brightness. Had their temples been placed in groves or valleys, they would probably have given up the attempt, and certainly never would have ventured upon it in such a climate as ours.

Except in such countries as Egypt and Greece, it must always be a mistake to apply colour by merely painting the surface of the building externally; but there are other modes of effecting this which are perfectly legitimate. Coloured ornaments may be inlaid in the stone of the wall without interfering with the construction, and so placed may be made more effective and brilliant than the same ornaments would be if carved in relief. Again, string-courses and mouldings of various coloured stones or marbles might frequently be employed with better effect than can be obtained in some situations by depth of cutting and boldness of projection. Such a mode of decoration can, however, only be partial; if the whole building is to be coloured, it must be done constructively, by using different coloured materials, or the effect will never be satisfactory.

In the Middle Ages the Italians carried this mode of decoration to a considerable extent; but in almost all instances it is so evidently a veneer overlying the construction that it fails to please; and a decoration which internally, where construction is of less importance, would excite general admiration, is without meaning on the outside of the same wall.

At the same time it is easy to conceive how polychromy might be carried out successfully, if, for instance, a building were erected, the pillars of which were of red granite or porphyry, the cornices or string-courses of dark coloured marbles, and the plain surfaces of lighter kinds, or even of stone. A design so carried out would be infinitely more effective than a similar one executed in materials of only one colour, and depending for relief only on varying shadows of daylight. There is in fact just the same difficulty in lighting monochromatic buildings as there is with sculpture. A coloured painting, on the other hand, requires merely sufficient light, and with that expresses its form and meaning far more clearly and easily than when only one colour is employed. The task, however, is difficult; so much so, indeed, that there is hardly one single instance known of a complete polychromatic design being successfully carried out anywhere, though often attempted. The other mode of merely inlaying the ornaments in colour instead of relieving them by carving as seldom fails.

Notwithstanding this, an architect should never neglect to select the colour of his materials with reference to the situation in which his building is to stand. A red brick building may look remarkably well if nestling among green trees, while the same building would be 37hideous if situated on a sandy plain, and relieved only by the warm glow of a setting sun. A building of white stone or white brick is as inappropriate among the trees, and may look bright and cheerful in the other situation.

In towns colours might be used of very great brilliancy, and if done constructively, there could be no greater improvement to our architecture; but its application is so difficult that no satisfactory result has yet been attained, and it may be questioned whether it will be ever successfully accomplished.

With regard to interiors there can be no doubt. All architects in all countries of the world resorted to this expedient to harmonise and to give brilliancy to their compositions, and have depended on it for their most important effects.

The Gothic architects carried this a step further by the introduction of painted glass, which was a mode of colouring more brilliant than had been ever before attempted. This went beyond all previous efforts, inasmuch as it coloured not only the objects themselves, but also the light in which they were seen. So enamoured were they of its beauties, that they sacrificed much of the constructive propriety of their buildings to admit of its display, and paid more attention to it than to any other part of their designs. Perhaps they carried this predilection a little beyond the limits of good taste; but colour is in itself so exquisite a thing, and so admirable a vehicle for the expression of architectural as well as of æsthetic beauty, that it is difficult to find fault even with the abuse of what is in its essence so legitimate and so beautiful.

Carved ornament and decorative colour come within the especial province of the architect. In some styles, such as the Saracenic, and in many buildings, they form the Alpha and the Omega of the decoration. But, as mentioned above, one of the great merits of architecture as an art is that it affords room for the display of the works of the sculptor and the painter, not only in such a manner as not to interfere with its own decorative construction, but so as to add meaning and value to the whole. No Greek temple and no Gothic cathedral can indeed be said to be perfect or complete without these adjuncts; and one of the principal objects of the architects in Greece or in the Middle Ages was to design places and devise means by which these could be displayed to advantage, without interfering either with the construction or constructive decoration. This was perhaps effected more successfully in the Parthenon than in any other building we are acquainted with. The pediments at either end were noble frames for the exhibition of sculpture, and the metopes were equally appropriate for the purpose; 38while the plain walls of the cella were admirably adapted for paintings below and for a sculptured frieze above.

The deeply recessed portals of our Gothic cathedrals, their galleries, their niches and pinnacles, were equally appropriate for the exuberant display of this class of sculpture in a less refined or fastidious age; while the mullion-framed windows were admirably adapted for the exhibition of a mode of coloured decoration, somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed, but wonderfully brilliant.

The system was carried further in India than in any other country except perhaps Egypt. Probably no Hindu temple was ever erected without being at least intended to be adorned with Phonetic sculpture, and many of them are covered with it from the plinth to the eaves, in strong contrast with the Mahomedan buildings that stand side by side with them, and which are wholly devoid of any attempt at this kind of decoration. The taste of these Hindu sculptures may be questionable, but such as they are they are so used as never to interfere with the architectural effect of the building on which they are employed, but always so as to aid the design irrespective of the story they have to tell. There is probably no instance in which their removal or their absence would not be felt as an injury from an architectural point of view.

It is difficult now to ascertain whether Phonetic painting was used to the same extent as sculpture in ancient times. From its nature it is infinitely more perishable, and a bucket of whitewash will in half an hour obliterate the work of years, and, strange to say, there are ages, both in the East and the west, where men’s minds are so attuned that they consider whitewash a more fitting decoration than coloured paintings of the most elaborate and artistic character. While this is so we need hardly wonder that our means of forming a distinct opinion on this subject are somewhat limited.

Be this as it may, it is still one of the special privileges of architecture that she is able to attract to herself these phonetic arts, and one of the greatest merits a building can possess is its affording appropriate places for their display without interfering in any way with the special department of the architect. But it is always necessary to distinguish carefully between what belongs to the province of each art separately. The work of the architect ought to be complete and perfect without either sculpture or painting, and must be judged as if they were absent; but he will not have been entirely successful unless he has provided the means by which the value of his design may be doubled by their introduction. It is only by the combination of the Phonetic utterance with the Technic and Æsthetic elements that a perfect work of art has been produced, and that architecture can be said to have reached the highest point of perfection to which it can aspire.

Considerable confusion has been introduced into the reasoning on the subject of architectural Uniformity from the assumption that the two great schools of art—the classical and the mediæval—adopted contrary conclusions regarding it, Formality being supposed to be the characteristic of the former, Irregularity of the latter. The Greeks, of course, when building a temple or monument, which was only one room or one object, made it exactly symmetrical in all its parts; but so did the Gothic architects when building a church or chapel or hall, or any single object: in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a line drawn down the centre divides it into two equal and symmetrical halves; and when an exception to this occurs, there is some obvious motive for it.

But where several buildings of different classes were to be grouped, or even two temples placed near one another, the Greeks took the utmost care to prevent their appearing parts of one design or one whole; and when, as in the instance of the Erechtheium,^[15] three temples are placed together, no Gothic architect ever took such pains to secure for each its separate individuality as the Grecian architect did. What has given rise to the error is, that all the smaller objects of Grecian art have perished, leaving us only the great monuments without their adjuncts.

If we can conceive the task assigned to a Grecian architect of erecting a building like one of our collegiate institutions, he would without doubt have distinguished the chapel from the refectory, and that from the library, and he would have made them of a totally different design from the principal’s lodge, or the chambers of the fellows and students; but it is more than probable that, while carefully distinguishing each part from the other, he would have arranged them with some regard to symmetry, placing the chapel in the centre, the library and refectory as pendants to one another, though dissimilar, and the residences so as to connect and fill up the whole design. The truth seems to be that no great amount of dignity can be obtained without a certain degree of regularity; and there can be little doubt that artistically it is better that mere utilitarian convenience should give way to the exigencies of architectural design than that the latter should be constrained to yield to the mere prosaic requirements of the building. The chance-medley manner in which many such buildings were grouped together in the Middle Ages tells the story as clearly, and may be productive of great picturesqueness of effect, but not of the same nobility as might have been obtained by more regularity. The highest class of design will never be reached by these means.

40It is not difficult to discover, at least to a certain extent, that the cause of this is that no number of separate units will suffice to make one whole. A number of pebbles will not make a great stone, nor a number of rose-bushes an oak; nor will any number of dwarfs make up a giant. To obtain a great whole there must be unity, to which all the parts must contribute, or they will remain separate particles. The effect of unity is materially heightened when to it is added uniformity: the mind then instantly and easily grasps the whole, knows it to be one, and recognises the ruling idea that governed and moulded the whole together. It seems only to be by the introduction of uniformity that sufficient simplicity for greatness can be obtained, and the evidence of design made so manifest that the mind is satisfied that the building is no mere accumulation of separate objects, but the production of a master-mind.

In a palace irregularity seems unpardonable. The architect has there practically unlimited command of funds and of his arrangements, and he can easily design his suites of rooms so as to produce any amount of uniformity he may require: the different heights of the different storeys and the amount of ornament on them, with the employment of wings for offices, is sufficient to mark the various purposes of the various parts; but where the system is carried so far in great public buildings, that great halls, libraries, committee-rooms, and subordinate residences are all squeezed into one perfectly uniform design, the building loses all meaning, and fails from the opposite error.

The rule seems to be, that every building or every part of one ought most distinctly and clearly to express not only its constructive exigencies, but also the uses for which it is destined; on the other hand, that mere utility, in all instances where architectural effect is aimed at, ought to give way to artistic requirements; and that an architect is consequently justified, in so far as his means will admit, in producing that amount of uniformity and regularity which seems indispensable for anything like grandeur of effect. In villas and small buildings all we look for is picturesqueness and meaning combined with elegance; but in larger and more monumental erections we expect something more; and this can hardly be obtained without the introduction of some new element which shall tell, in the first place, that artistic excellence was the ruling idea of the design, and in the next should give it that perfect balance and symmetry which seems to be as inherent a quality of the higher works of nature as of true art.

The subject of the imitation of Nature is one intimately connected with those mooted in the preceding paragraphs, and regarding which considerable misunderstanding seems to prevail. It is generally assumed 41that in architecture we ought to copy natural objects as we see them, whereas the truth seems to be that we ought always to copy the processes, never the forms of Nature. The error apparently has arisen from confounding together the imitative arts of painting and sculpture with the constructive art of architecture. The former have no other mode of expression than by copying, more or less literally, the forms of Nature; the latter, as explained above, depends wholly on a different class of elements for its effect; but at the same time no architect can either study too intently, or copy too closely, the methods and processes by which Nature accomplishes her ends; and the most perfect building will be that in which these have been most closely and literally followed.

To take one prominent instance:—So far as we can judge, the human body is the most perfect of Nature’s works; in it the groundwork of skeleton is never seen, and though it can hardly be said to be anywhere concealed, it is only displayed at the joints or more prominent points of support, where the action of the frame would be otherwise unintelligible. The muscles are disposed not only where they are most useful, but so as to form groups gracefully rounded in outline. The softness and elegance of these are further aided by the deposition of adipose matter, and the whole is covered with a skin which with its beautiful texture conceals the more utilitarian construction of the internal parts. In the trunk of the body the viscera are disposed wholly without symmetry or reference to beauty of any sort—the heart on one side, the liver on the other, and the other parts exactly in those positions and in those forms by which they may most directly and easily perform the essential functions for which they are designed. But the whole is concealed in a perfectly symmetrical sheath of the most exquisitely beautiful outline. It may be safely asserted that a building is beautiful and perfect exactly in the ratio in which the same amount of concealment and the same amount of display of construction is preserved, where the same symmetry is shown as between the right and left sides of the human body—the same difference as between the legs and arms, where the parts are applied to different purposes, and where the same amount of ornament is added, to adorn without interfering with what is useful. In short, there is no principle involved in the structure of man which may not be taken as the most absolute standard of excellence in architecture.

It is in Nature’s highest works that we find the symmetry of proportion most prominent. When we descend to the lower types of animals we lose it to a great extent, and among trees and vegetables generally find it only in a far less degree, and sometimes miss it altogether. In the mineral kingdom among rocks and stones it is altogether absent. So universal is this principle in Nature that we may safely apply it to our criticism on art, and say 42that a building is perfect as a whole in proportion to its motived regularity, and departs from the highest type in the ratio in which symmetrical arrangement is neglected. It may, however, be incorrect to say that an oak-tree is a less perfect work of creation than a human being, but it is certain that it is lower in the scale of created beings. So it may be said that a picturesque group of Gothic buildings may be as perfect as the stately regularity of an Egyptian or classic temple; but if it is so, it is equally certain that it belongs to a lower and inferior class of design.

This analogy, however, we may leave for the present. The one point which it is indispensable to insist on here is, that man can progress or tend towards success only by following the principles and copying, so far as he can understand them, the processes which Nature employs in her works; but he can never succeed in anything by copying forms without reference to principles. If we could find Nature making trees like stones, or animals like trees, or birds like fishes, or fishes like mammalia, or using any parts taken from one kingdom for purposes belonging to another, it would then be perfectly legitimate for us to use man’s stature as the modulus for a Doric, or woman’s as that of an Ionic column—to build cathedrals like groves, and make windows like leaves, or to estimate their beauty by their resemblance to such objects; but all such comparisons proceed on an entire mistake of what imitation of Nature really means.

It is the merest and most absolute negation of reason to apply to one purpose things that were designed for another, or to imitate them when they have no appropriateness; but it is our highest privilege to understand the processes of Nature. To apply these to our own wants and purposes is the noblest use of human intellect and the perfection of human wisdom.

So instinctively, but so literally, has this correct process of imitating Nature been followed in all true styles of architecture, that we can always reason regarding them as we do with reference to natural objects. Thus, if an architect finds in any quarter of the globe a Doric or Corinthian capital with a few traces of a foundation, he can, at a glance, tell the age of the temple or building to which it belonged. He knows who the people were who erected it, to what purpose it was dedicated, and proceeds at once to restore its porticos, and without much uncertainty can reproduce the whole fabric. Or if he finds a few Gothic bases in situ, with a few mouldings or frusta of columns, by the same process he traces the age, the size, and the purposes of the building before him. A Cuvier or an Owen can restore the form and predicate the habits of an extinct animal from a few fragments of bone, or even from a print of a foot. In the same manner an architect may, from a few fragments of a building, if of a true style of architecture, restore the whole of its pristine forms, and with almost the same amount of 43certainty. This arises wholly because the architects of former days had correct ideas of what was meant by imitation of Nature. They added nothing to their buildings which was not essential; there was no detail which had not its use, and no ornament which was not an elaboration or heightening of some essential part, and hence it is that a true building is as like to a work of Nature as any production of man’s hands can be to the creations of his Maker.

There is one property inherent in the productions of architectural art, which, while it frequently lends to them half their charm, at the same time tends more than anything else to warp and distort our critical judgments regarding them. We seldom can look at a building of any age without associating with it such historical memories as may cling to its walls; and our predilections for any peculiar style of architecture are more often due to educational or devotional associations than to purely artistic judgments. A man must be singularly ignorant or strangely passionless who can stand among the fallen columns of a Grecian temple, or wander through the corridors of a Roman amphitheatre, or the aisles of a ruined Gothic abbey, and not feel his heart stirred by emotions of a totally different class from those suggested by the beauty of the mouldings or the artistic arrangement of the building he is contemplating.

The enthusiasm which burst forth in the 15th century for the classical style of art, and then proved fatal to the Gothic, was not so much an architectural as a literary movement. It arose from the re-discovery—if it may be so called—of the poems of Homer and Virgil, of the histories of Thucydides and Tacitus, of the Philosophy of Aristotle and the eloquence of Cicero. It was a vast reaction against the darkness and literary degradation of the Middle Ages, and carried the educated classes of Europe with it for the next three centuries. So long as classical literature only was taught in our schools, and classical models followed in our literature, classical architecture could alone be tolerated in our buildings, and this generally without the least reference either to its own peculiar beauties, or its appropriateness for the purposes to which it was applied.

A second reaction has now taken place against this state of affairs. The revival of the rites and ceremonies of the mediæval Church, our reverent love of our own national antiquities, and our admiration for the rude but vigorous manhood of the Middle Ages,—all have combined to repress the classical element both in our literature and our art, and to exalt in their place Gothic feelings and Gothic art, to an extent which cannot be justified on any grounds of reasonable criticism.

44Unless the art-critic can free himself from the influence of these adventitious associations, his judgments lose half their value; but, on the other hand, to the historian of art they are of the utmost importance. It is because architecture so fully and so clearly expresses the feelings of the people who practised it that it becomes frequently a better vehicle of history than the written page; and it is these very associations that give life and meaning to blocks of stone and mounds of brick, and bring so vividly before our eyes the feelings and the aspirations of the long-forgotten past.

The importance of association in giving value to the objects of architectural art can hardly be overrated either by the student or historian. What has to be guarded against is that unreasoning enthusiasm which mistakes the shadow for the reality, and would force us to admire a rude piece of clumsy barbarism erected yesterday, and to which no history consequently attaches, because something like it was done in some long past age. Its reality, its antiquity, and its weather stains may render its prototype extremely interesting, even if not beautiful; while its copy is only an antiquarian toy, as ugly as it is absurd.

There is still one other point of view from which it is necessary to look at this question of architectural design before any just conclusion can be arrived at regarding it. It is in fact necessary to answer two other questions, nearly as often asked as those proposed at the beginning of Section III. “Can any one invent a new style?”—“Can we ever again have a new and original style of architecture?” Reasoning from experience alone, it is easy to answer these questions. No individual has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the world. No one can even be named who during the prevalence of a true style of art materially advanced its progress, or by his individual exertion did much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that as this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will ever occur now.

If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other may as certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation in any age or in any part of the globe has failed to invent for itself a true and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set about it in the right way, and there certainly can be no great difficulty in our doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to work in a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process which others have followed to obtain this result.

What that process is, may perhaps be best explained by such an example as that of ship-building before alluded to, which, though 45totally distinct, is still so nearly allied to architecture, as to make a comparison between the two easy and intelligible.

Let us, for instance, take a series of ships, beginning with those in which William the Conqueror invaded our shores, or the fleet with which Edward III. crossed over to France. Next take the vessels which transported Henry VIII. to his meeting with Francis I., and then pass on to the time of the Spanish Armada and the sea fights of Van Tromp and De Ruyter, and on to the times of William III., and then through the familiar examples till we come to such ships as the ‘Wellington’ and ‘Marlborough’ of yesterday, and the ‘Warrior’ or ‘Minotaur’ of to-day. In all this long list of examples we have a gradual, steady, forward progress without one check or break. Each century is in advance of the one before it, and the result is as near perfection as we can well conceive.

But if we ask who effected these improvements, or who invented any part of the last-named wonderful fabrics, we must search deep indeed into the annals of the navy to find out. But no one has inquired and no one cares to know, for the simple reason that, like architecture in the Middle Ages, it is a true and living art, and the improvements were not effected by individuals, but by all classes—owners, sailors, shipwrights, and men of science, all working together through centuries, each lending the aid of his experience or of his reasoning.

If we place alongside of this series of ships a list of churches or cathedrals, commencing with Charlemagne and ending with Charles V., we find the same steady and assured progress obtained by the same identical means. In this instance, princes, priests, masons, and mathematicians, all worked steadily together for the whole period, striving to obtain a well-defined result.

In the ship the most suitable materials only are employed in every part, and neither below nor aloft is there one single timber nor spar nor one rope which is superfluous. Nor in the cathedral was any material ever used that was not believed to be the most suitable for its purpose; nor any form of construction adopted which did not seem the best to those who employed it; nor any detail added which did not appear necessary for the purpose it was designed to express? the result being, that we can look on and contemplate both with the same unmitigated satisfaction.

The one point where this comparison seems to halt is, that ship-building never became a purely fine art, which architecture really is. The difference is only one of aim, which it would be as easy to apply to the one art as it has been to the other. Had architecture never progressed beyond its one strictly legitimate object of house-building, it would never have been more near a fine art than merchant ship-building, and palaces would only have been magnified dwelling-places. Castles and men-of-war advanced both one stage further towards a fine 46art. Size and power were impressed on both, and in this respect they stand precisely equal to one another. Here ship-building halted, and has not progressed beyond, while architecture has been invested with a higher aim. In all ages men have sought to erect houses more dignified and stately than those designed for their personal use. They attempted the erection of dwelling-places for their Gods, or temples worthy of the worship of Supreme Beings; and it was only when this strictly useful art threw aside all shadow of utilitarianism, and launched boldly forth in search of the beautiful and the sublime, that it became a truly fine art, and took the elevated position which it now holds above all other useful arts. It would have been easy to supply the same motive to ship-building. If we could imagine any nation ever to construct ships of God, or to worship on the bosom of the ocean, ships might easily be made such objects of beauty that the cathedral could hardly compete with them.

It is not, however, only in architecture or in ship-building that this progress is essential, for the progress of every art and every science that is worthy of the name is owing to the same simple process of the aggregation of experiences; whether we look to metallurgy or mechanics, cotton-spinning or coining, their perfection is due to the same cause. So also the sciences—astronomy, chemistry, geology—are all cultivated by the same means. When the art or science is new, great men stand forth and make great strides; but when once it reaches maturity, and becomes the property of the nation, the individual is lost in the mass, and a thousand inferior brains follow out steadily and surely the path which the one great intellect has pointed out, but which no single mind, however great, could carry to its legitimate conclusion.

So far as any reason or experience yet known can be applied to this subject, it seems clear that no art or science ever has been or can be now advanced by going backwards, and copying earlier forms, or those applicable to other times or other circumstances; and that progress towards perfection can only be obtained by the united efforts of many steadily pursuing a well-defined object. Whenever this is done, success appears to be inevitable, or at all events every age is perfectly satisfied with its own productions. Where forward progress is the law, it is certain that the next age will surpass the present; but the living cannot conceive anything more perfect than what they are doing, or they would apply it. Everything in any true art is thoroughly up to the highest standard of its period, and instead of the dissatisfied uncertainty in which we are wandering in all matters concerning architecture, we should be exulting in our own productions, and proud in leaving to our posterity the progress we have made, feeling assured that we have paved the way for them to advance to a still higher standard of perfection.

47As soon as the public are aware of the importance of this rule, and of its applicability to architecture, a new style must be the inevitable result; and if our civilisation is what we believe it to be, that style will not only be perfectly suited to all our wants and desires, but also more beautiful and more perfect than any that has ever existed before.

If we turn from these speculations to ask what prospect there is of the public appreciating correctly this view of the matter, or setting earnestly about carrying it out, the answer can hardly be deemed satisfactory; in fact, if it were left to the public, very little progress, except from an utilitarian point of view, would probably be made.

The study of the classical languages, to which so much importance is attached in our public schools, and in our own and most foreign universities, tended at one time in another way to draw attention from the formation of a true style of architecture by fixing it exclusively on Greek and Roman models. The Renaissance in the 15th century, as pointed out above, arose much more from admiration of classic literature than from any feeling for the remains of buildings which had been neglected for centuries, and were far surpassed by those which succeeded them. The same feelings perpetuated by early association are the great cause of the hold that classic art still has on the educated classes in Europe.

On the other hand, the revival of the Gothic style fifty years ago enlisted the sympathy of the clergy, not only in England, but on the continent of Europe, when they arrived at the conclusion that the Gothic style was the one most suited for church-building purposes; and attempted to establish a point that no deviation from Gothic models should be tolerated.

Beyond these there was another class of men who had but little sympathy with Greece or Rome, and still less with mediæval monasticism or feudalism, but who in their own strong sense were inclined to take a more reasonable view of the matter, and these men have for years been erecting in London, Manchester, Leeds, and in other cities of England a series of warehouses and other buildings designed wholly with reference to their uses, and ornamented only in their construction, and which consequently are—as far as their utilitarian purposes will allow—as satisfactory as anything of former days.

In addition to these, and within the last fifteen to twenty years, a very great progress has taken place in domestic architecture, not only in London and its suburbs, but throughout England, where buildings have been erected of a new and an original type, peculiarly applicable to the requirements of English domestic life, and of great variety and picturesque design; and these remarks apply not only to 48mansions, but to the residences of a much humbler and more simple kind.

In civil engineering, the lowest and most prosaic branch of architectural art, our progress has been brilliant and rapid. Of this no better example can be given than the four great bridges erected over the Thames. The old bridges of Westminster and Blackfriars, and those of Waterloo and London, were erected at nearly equal intervals during one century, and the steady progress which they exhibit is greater than that of almost any similar branch of art during any equal period of time.

In this department our progress is so undeniable that we saw old London Bridge removed without regret, though it was a work of the same age and of the same men who built all our greatest and best cathedrals, and in its own line was quite as perfect and as beautiful as they. But it had outlived its age, and we knew we could replace it by a better—so its destruction was inevitable; and if we had made the same progress in the higher that we have in the lower branches of the building art, we should see a Gothic cathedral pulled down with the same indifference, content to know that we could easily replace it by one far nobler and more worthy of our age and intelligence. No architect during the Middle Ages ever hesitated to pull down any part of a cathedral that was old and going to decay, and to replace it with something in the style of the day, however incongruous that might be; and if we were progressing as they were, we should have as little compunction in following the same course.

In the confusion of ideas and of styles which now prevails, it is satisfactory to be able to contemplate, in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, at least one great building carried out wholly on the principles of Gothic or of any true style of art. No material is used in it which is not the best for its purpose, no constructive expedient employed which was not absolutely essential, and it depends wholly for its effect on the arrangement of its parts and the display of its construction. So essentially is its principle the same which, as we have seen, animated Gothic architecture, that we hardly know even now how much of the design belongs to Sir Joseph Paxton, how much to the contractors, or how much to the subordinate officers employed by the Company. Here, as in a cathedral, every man was set to work in that department which it was supposed he was best qualified to superintend. There was room for every art and for every intellect, and clashing and interference were impossible. This, however, was only the second of the series. The third was entrusted to an Engineer officer, who had no architectural education, and who had never thought twice on the subject before he was set to carry out his very inchoate design for the 1862 Exhibition. He failed of course, for architecture is not a Phonetic art depending on inspiration, but a technic art based on experience. As re-erected on 49Muswell Hill the building was immensely improved, and far superior to its predecessor, but was burnt down before the public had time to realise its form. As being rebuilt, it probably will be still one step further in advance, and if the series were carried to a hundred, with more leisure and a higher aim, we might perhaps learn to despise many things we now so servilely copy, and might create a style surpassing anything that ever went before. We have certainly more wealth, more constructive skill, and more knowledge than our forefathers; and, living in the same climate and being of the same race, there seems no insuperable difficulty in our doing at least as much if not more than they accomplished.

Art, however, will not be regenerated by buildings so ephemeral as Crystal Palaces or so prosaic as Manchester warehouses, nor by anything so essentially utilitarian as the works of our engineers. The one hope is that having commenced at the bottom, the true system may extend upwards, and come at last to be applied to our palaces and even to churches, and that the whole nation may lend its aid to work out the great problem. The prospect of this being done may seem distant, but as soon as the general significance of the problem is fully appreciated by the public, the result seems inevitable; and with the means of diffusing knowledge which we now possess, we may perhaps be permitted to fancy that the dawn is at hand, and that after our long wanderings in the dark, daylight may again enlighten our path and gladden our hearts with the vision of brighter and better things in art than a false system has hitherto enabled us to attain.

These remarks might easily be extended to any desired length, and in fact this part of the work ought to be enlarged till it equalled the narrative part, if it had any pretension to be a complete treatise on the Art of Architecture. In that case, the static or descriptive part of a treatise on any art is equally important with the dynamic or narrative part. In most instances more so; but in this respect architecture is exceptional, and the narrative form is by far the more important of the two divisions into which the subject naturally divides itself.

If, for instance, any one were writing a treatise on Naval Architecture, it is more than probable that he would not allude to any vessel not afloat at the time of his writing. If he mentioned the triremes of the Romans or the galleys of the Venetians, it would be in an introductory chapter intended for the amusement, not the instruction, of his readers. In like manner, if an engineer undertakes to write on the art of bridge-building, harbour-making, or on roads or canals, he is only careful to cite the best existing examples in use, and would be considered pedantic if he wasted his time, or that of his readers, in recounting what was done in these departments by the Romans or the Chinese. If the fine art architecture was with us as well up to the 50mark of the intelligence of the day as these more utilitarian branches of the profession, the same course would be the proper one to pursue in writing with regard to it. Unfortunately, however, we have no architecture of our own, and it is impossible to make the various styles in practice either intelligible or interesting, except by tracing them back to their origin, and explaining the steps by which they reached perfection.

If architecture was practised by us on the same principles that guided either the Classic or Gothic architects in their designs, a static treatise on it would not only be the most instructive but the most pleasing form of teaching its elements. Owing, however, to the system of copying which is now the basis of all designs, this is no longer the case, and the consequently abnormal position of the art renders the study of its principles almost impossible, and memory must supply the place of pure reason for their elucidation, thus giving to the narrative branch of the subject a somewhat exaggerated importance, even when looked at from a merely technic point of view.

Besides this, however, the narrative form as applied to Architecture has advantages of its own greater than those of any other art of the same class, inasmuch as it is a great stone book in which most of the nations of the earth have recorded their annals, and written their thoughts, and even expressed their feelings in clearer and truer language than by any other form of utterance. The pyramids and temples of Egypt are a truer expression of the feelings and aspirations of their builders than we can obtain from any other source. The Parthenon at Athens brings the age of Pericles more clearly before our eyes in all its perfection of art than any written page. The Flavian Amphitheatre and the Baths of Caracalla enable us to realise imperial Rome more vividly than even the glowing pages of Tacitus. Our Mediæval cathedrals are a living record of the faith and feelings of peoples, who have left, besides these, but few materials by which one could judge of their aspirations or of their civilisation; while, if we wish to know in what India differed from Europe in those ages, and in what respect she still resembled it, it is to her contemporary temples that we must turn, and they tell us in a language not to be mistaken wherein lay the differences, and still how nearly alike the civilisations at one time were. All this, and infinitely more, we may learn from a record, which, though often ruined and nearly obliterated, never deceives. Where it first was placed, there it still remains to tell to future generations what at that spot, at some previous time, men thought and felt; what their state of civilisation enabled them to accomplish, and to what stage they had attained in their conception of a God.

Besides, however, the advantages to be obtained in an artistic point of view from treating architecture in a narrative rather than in a static form, there is, as pointed out above, still another, which, though of 51minor importance, still adds immensely to the interest of the subject. It is that, when so treated, the art affords one of the clearest and most certain tests known of the ethnographic relations of people one to another. It may, therefore, be as well, before proceeding further, to explain as briefly as is consistent with intelligibility what is meant by Architectural Ethnography.

PART II. — I.—ETHNOGRAPHY AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURAL ART. — II.—TURANIAN. — Religion of the Turanians. — Government. — Morals. — Literature. — Arts. — Sciences. — III.—SEMITIC RACES. — Religion. — Government. — Morals. — Literature. — Arts. — Sciences. — IV.—CELTIC. — Religion. — Government. — Morals. — Literature. — Arts. — Sciences. — V.—ARYAN. — Religion. — Government. — Morals. — Literature. — Art. — Sciences. — CONCLUSION.

Ethnology, though one of the youngest, is perhaps neither the least beautiful nor the least attractive of that fair sisterhood of sciences whose birth has rewarded the patient industry and inflexible love of truth which characterises the philosophy of the present day. It takes up the history of the world at the point where it is left by its elder sister Geology, and, following the same line of argument, strives to reduce to the same scientific mode of expression the apparent chaos of facts which have hitherto been looked upon as inexplicable by the general observer.

It is only within the limits of the present century that Geology was rescued from the dreams of cataclysms and convulsions which formed the staple of the science in the last century; and that step by step, by slow degrees, rocks have been classified and phenomena explained. All that picturesque wildness with which the materials seemed at first sight to be distributed over the world’s surface has been reduced to order, and they now lie arranged as clearly, and as certainly in the mind of a geologist, as if they had been squared by the tool of a mason and placed in order by the hand of a mechanic. So it is with Ethnology. Race has succeeded race;—all have been disturbed, some obliterated—many contorted—and sometimes the older, apparently, superimposed upon the newer. All at first sight is chaos and confusion, and it seems almost hopeless to attempt to unravel the mysteries of the long-forgotten past. It is true nevertheless, in Ethnology, as in the sister science, that no change on the world’s surface has taken place without leaving its mark. A race may be obliterated, or only crop up at the edge of some great basin of population; but it has left its traces either as fossil remains in the shape of buildings or works, or as impressions on language or on the arts of those who supplanted the perishing race. When these are read,—when all the phenomena are gathered together and classified, we find the same perfection of Order, the same beautiful simplicity of law pervading the same complex variety of results, which characterise all the phenomena of nature, and the knowledge of which is the highest reward of intellectual exertion.

Language has hitherto been the great implement of analysis which 53has been employed to elucidate the affiliation of races; and the present state of the science may be said to be almost entirely due to the acumen and industry of learned linguists. Physiology has lent her aid; but the objects offered for her examination are so few, especially in remote ages, and the individual differences are so small, as compared with the general resemblance, that, in the present state of that science, its aid has not been of the importance which it may fairly be expected hereafter to assume. In both sciences History plays an important part: in Geology, by furnishing analogies without which it would be hardly possible to interpret the facts; in Ethnology, by pointing out the direction in which inquiries should be made, and by guiding and controlling the conclusions which may have been arrived at. With the assistance of these sciences, Ethnologists have accomplished a great deal, and may do more; but Ethnology, based merely on Language^[16] and Physiology, is like Geology based only on Mineralogy and Chemistry. Without Palæontology, that science would never have assumed the importance or reached the perfection to which it has now attained; and Ethnology will never take the place which it is really entitled to, till its results are checked, and its conclusions elucidated, by the science of Archæology.

Without the aid and vivifying influence derived from the study of fossil remains, Geology would lose half its value and more than half its interest. It may be interesting to the man of science to know what rock is superimposed upon another, and how and in what relative periods these changes occurred; but it is far more interesting to watch the dawn of life on this globe, and to trace its development into the present teeming stage of existence. So it will be when, with the aid of Archæology, Ethnologists are able to identify the various strata in which mankind have been distributed; to fix identities of race from similarities of Art; and to read the history of the past from the unconscious testimony of material remains. When properly studied and understood, there is no language so clear, or whose testimony is so undoubted, as that of those petrified thoughts and feelings which men have left engraved on the walls of their temples, or buried with them in the chambers of their tombs. Unconsciously expressed, but imperishably written, they are there to this hour. Any one who likes may read, and no one who can translate them can for one moment doubt but that they are the best, and frequently the only, records that remain of bygone races.

54It is not difficult to explain why ethnographers have not hitherto considered Archæology of that importance to their researches to which it is undoubtedly entitled. We live in an age when all Art is a chaos of copying and confusion; we are daily masquerading in the costume of every nation of the earth, ancient and modern, and are unable to realise that these dresses in which we deck ourselves were once realities. Because Architecture, since the Reformation in the sixteenth century, has in Europe been a mere hortus siccus of dried specimens of the art of all countries and of all ages, we cannot feel that, before that time, Art was earnest and progressive; and that men then did what they felt to be best and most appropriate, by the same processes by which Nature works. We do not therefore perceive that, though in an infinitely lower grade, we may reason of the works of man before a given date, with the same certainty with which we can reason of those of Nature. When this great fact is once recognised—and it is indisputable—Archæology and Palæontology take their places side by side, as the guiding and vivifying elements in the sister sciences of Ethnology and Geology; and give to each of these a value they could never otherwise attain.

As may well be expected, however, when Archæology is employed to aid in these researches, results are frequently arrived at, which at first sight are discrepant from those to which the study of language alone has hitherto led scientific men. But this is no proof either of the truth or falsehood of the conclusions arrived at, or of the value or worthlessness of the processes employed. Both are essential to the question of knowledge, and it is by a skilful balancing of both classes of evidence that truth is ultimately arrived at.

It would be out of place to attempt in an introduction like the present anything approaching to a complete investigation of this subject. Nor is it necessary. The various ethnographic relations of one style to another will be pointed out as they arise in the course of the narrative, and their influence traced to such an extent as may be necessary to render them intelligible. But for the same reasons which made it expedient to try, in the preceding pages, to define the meaning of the term architecture and to point out its position and limits, it is believed that it will add to the clearness of what follows if the typical characteristics of the principal races^[17] of mankind with whom the 55narrative deals, are first defined as clearly, though as succinctly as possible.

As the object of introducing the subject here is not to write an essay on Ethnology, but to render the history of Architecture interesting and intelligible, it may be expedient to avoid all speculation as to the origin of mankind, or the mode in which the various races diverged from one another and became so markedly distinct. Stretch the history of Architecture as we will, we cannot get beyond the epoch of the Pyramid builders (3500 B.C.), and when these were erected the various races of mankind had acquired those distinctive characteristics which mark them now. Not long afterwards, when the tombs at Beni Hassan were painted (2500 B.C.), these distinctions were so marked and so well understood, that these pictures might serve for the illustration of a book on Ethnography at the present day. Nor will it be necessary in this preliminary sketch to attempt more than to point out the typical features of the four great building races of mankind. The Turanian, the Semitic, the Celtic, and the Aryan. Even with regard to these, all that will be necessary will be to point out the typical characteristics without even attempting to define too accurately their boundaries, and leaving the minuter gradations to be developed in the sequel.

The one great fact which it is essential to insist on here is, that if we do not take into account its connexion with Ethnography, the History of Architecture is a mere dry, hard recapitulation of uninteresting facts and terms; but when its relation to the world’s history is understood,—when we read in their buildings the feelings and aspirations of the people who erected them, and above all through their arts we can trace their relationship to, and their descent from one another, the study becomes one of the most interesting, as well as one of the most useful which can be presented to an inquiring mind.

The result of recent researches has enabled the ethnographer to divide and arrange prehistoric man into three great groups or periods, which in Europe at least seem to have succeeded to one another; though at what time has not yet been determined even approximately; nor is it known how long any of the three subsisted before it was superseded by the next, nor how far the one overlapped the other, or indeed, whether, as was almost certainly the case, at some time all three may not have subsisted together.

The first is called the Stone age, from the rude race who then peopled Europe having no knowledge of the use of metals. All the cutting parts of their implements were formed of flint or other hard 56stones, probably fitted with wooden or bone handles, and used as tools of these materials.

These were succeeded by a people having a knowledge of the use of copper and tin, with the possession of gold, and perhaps silver. Their principal weapons and tools were formed of a compound of the two first-named metals; and their age has consequently been called the age of Bronze.

Both these were superseded, perhaps in historic times, by a people having a knowledge of the properties and use of Iron. Hence their epoch came to be distinguished by the name of that metal.

There seems no doubt but that the people of the Stone age were generally, if not exclusively, of that great family which we now know as the Turanian.

The race who introduced bronze seem to have been the ancestors of the Celtic races who afterwards peopled so large a portion of Europe.

The Aryans were those who introduced the use of iron, and with it dominated over and expelled the older races.

If any prehistoric traces of the Semitic races are to be found, they must be looked for in Western Asia or in Africa; they certainly had no settlements in Europe.

Further researches may perhaps at some future time enable us to fix approximative dates to these various migrations. At present we know that men using flint implements lived in the valleys of the Garonne and Dordogne when the climate of the south of France was as cold as that of Lapland, or perhaps Greenland; when the reindeer was their principal domestic animal, and the larger animals of the country belonged to species many of which had ceased to inhabit those regions before the dawn of history. On the other hand, we may assert with certainty that the climate of Egypt has not varied since the age of the Pyramid builders; and there is nothing in the history of either Greece or Italy that would lead us to believe that any remarkable alteration in the climate of these countries has taken place in historic times.

These questions, however, hardly come within the scope of the present work. The men of the Stone age have left nothing which can be styled architecture, unless we include in that term the rude tumuli of earth with which they covered the remains of their dead. It is also extremely uncertain if we can identify any building of stone as belonging certainly to the age of Bronze. All the rude cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, &c., which usher in the early dawn of civilisation in Europe, belong, it is true to the earlier races, but seem to have been erected by them at a time when the Aryan races had taught them the use of iron, and they had learnt to appreciate the value of stone as a monumental record. This, however, was at a period long subsequent to the use of iron in Egypt and the East, and long after architecture had 57attained maturity; and its history became easily and distinctly legible in the Valley of the Nile.^[18]

The great feature in the history of the Turanian races is that they were the first to people the whole world beyond the limits of the original cradle of mankind. Like the primitive unstratified rocks of geologists, they form the substructure of the whole world, frequently rising into the highest and most prominent peaks, sometimes overflowing whole districts and occupying a vast portion of the world’s surface;—everywhere underlying all the others, and affording their disintegrated materials to form the more recent strata that now overlie and frequently obliterate them,—in appearance at least.

In the old world the typical Turanians were the Egyptians; in the modern the Chinese and Japanese; and to these we are perhaps justified in adding the Mexicans. If this last adscription stands good, we have at three nearly equidistant points (120 degrees apart) on the earth’s surface, and under the tropic of Cancer, the three great culminating points of this form of civilisation. The outlying strata in Asia are the Tamuls, who now occupy the whole of the south of India, and all the races now existing in the countries between India and China. The Turanians existed in the Valley of the Euphrates before the Semitic or Aryan races came there. The Tunguses in the north are Turanians, and so are the Mongols, the Turks, and all those tribes generally described as Tartars.

In Europe the oldest people of this family we are acquainted with are the Pelasgi and Etruscans, but the race also crops up in the Magyars, the Finns, the Lapps, and in odd broken fragments here and there, but everywhere overpowered by the more civilised Aryans, who succeeded and have driven them into the remotest corners of the continent.

In Africa they have been almost as completely overpowered by the Semitic race, and in America are now being everywhere as entirely overwhelmed as they were in Europe by the Aryan races, and in all probability must eventually disappear altogether.

Even if the linguist should hesitate to affirm that all their languages can be traced to a common root, or present sufficient affinities for a classification, the general features of the races enumerated above are so alike the one to the other, that, for all real ethnographic purposes, they may certainly be considered as belonging to one great group. Whether nearly obliterated, as they are in most parts of Europe, or whether they still retain their nationality, as in the eastern parts of Asia, they always appear as the earliest of races, and everywhere present peculiarities of feeling and civilisation easily 58recognised, and which distinguish them from all the other races of mankind.

If they do not all speak cognate languages, or if we cannot now trace their linguistic affinities, we must not too readily assume that therefore they are distinct the one from the other. It must be more philosophical to believe, what probably is the case, that the one instrument of analysis we have hitherto used is not sufficient for the purpose, and we ought consequently to welcome every other process which will throw further light on the subject.

It is perhaps not too much to assert that no Turanian race ever rose to the idea of a God external to the world. All their gods were men who had lived with them on the face of the earth. In the old world they were kings,—men who had acquired fame from the extent of their power, or greatness from their wisdom. The Buddhist reform taught the Turanian races that virtue, not power, was true greatness, and that the humblest as well as the highest might attain beatitude through the practice of piety.

All the Turanians have a distinct idea of rewards and punishments after death, and generally also of a preparatory purgatory by transmigration through the bodies of animals, clean or unclean according to the actions of the defunct spirit, but always ending in another world. With some races transmigration becomes nearly all in all; in others it is nearly evanescent, and Heaven and Hell take its place; but the two are essentially doctrines of this race.

From the fact of their gods having been only ordinary mortals, and all men being able to aspire to the godhead, their form of worship was essentially anthropic and ancestral; their temples were palaces, where the gods sat on thrones and received petitions and dispensed justice as in life, and where men paid that homage to the image of the dead which they would have paid to the living king. They were in fact the idolators, par excellence. Their tombs were even more sacred than their temples, and their reverence was more frequently directed to the remains of their ancestors than to the images of their gods. Hence arose that reverence for relics which formed so marked a feature in their ritual in all ages, and which still prevails among many races almost in the direct ratio in which Turanian blood can be traced in their veins.

Unable to rise above humanity in their conceptions of the deity, they worshipped all material things. Trees with them in all times were objects of veneration, and of especial worship in particular localities. The mysterious serpent was with them a god, and the bull in most Turanian countries a being to be worshipped. The sun, the 59moon, the stars, all filled niches in their Pantheon; in fact, whatever they saw they believed in, whatever they could not comprehend they worshipped. They cared not to inquire beyond the evidence of their senses, and were incapable of abstracting their conceptions. To the Turanians also is due that peculiar reverence for localities made celebrated by great historical events, or rendered sacred by being the scene of great religious events, and hence to them must be ascribed the origin of pilgrimages, and all their concomitant adjuncts and ceremonies.

It is to this race also that we owe the existence of human sacrifices. Always fatalists, always and everywhere indifferent of life, and never fearing death, these sacrifices never were to them so terrible as they appear to more highly-organised races. Thus a child, a relative, or a friend, was the most precious, and consequently the most acceptable offering a man could bring to appease the wrath or propitiate the favour of a god who had been human, and who was supposed to have retained all the feelings of humanity for ever afterwards.

It is easy to trace their Tree and Serpent worship in every corner of the old world from Anuradhapura in Ceylon, to Upsala in Sweden. Their tombs and tumuli exist everywhere. Their ancestral worship is the foundation at the present day of half the popular creeds of the world, and the planets have hardly ceased to be worshipped at the present hour. Most of the more salient peculiarities of this faith were softened down by the great Buddhist reform in the sixth century B.C., and that refinement of their rude primitive belief has been adopted by most of the Turanian people of the modern world, and is now almost exclusively the appanage of people having Turanian blood in their veins. Even, however, through the gloss of their Buddhist refinements we can still discern most of the old forms of faith, and even its most devoted votaries are yet hardly more than half converted.

The only form of government ever adopted by any people of Turanian race was that of absolute despotism,—with a tribe, a chief,—in a kingdom, a despot. In highly civilised communities, like those of Egypt and China, their despotism was tempered by bureaucratic forms, but the chief was always as absolute as a Timour or an Attila, though not always strong enough to use his power as terribly as they did. Their laws were real or traditional edicts of their kings, seldom written, and never administered according to any fixed form of procedure.

As a consequence or a cause of this, the Turanian race are absolutely casteless; no hereditary nobility, no caste of priests ever existed 60among them; between the ruler and the people there could be nothing, and every one might aspire equally to all the honours of the State, or to the highest dignity of the priesthood. “La carrière ouverte aux talens,” is essentially the motto of these races or of those allied to them, and whether it was the slave of a Pharaoh, or the pipe-bearer of a Turkish sultan, every office except the throne is and always was open to the ambitious. No republic, no limited monarchy, ever arose among them. Despotism pure and simple is all they ever knew, or are even now capable of appreciating.

Woman among the Turanian races was never regarded otherwise than as the helpmate of the poor and the plaything of the rich; born to work for the lower classes and to administer to the gratification of the higher. No equality of rights or position was ever dreamt of, and the consequence was polyandry where people were poor and women scarce, and polygamy where wealth and luxury prevailed; and with these it need hardly be added, a loss of half those feelings which ennoble man or make life valuable.

Neither loving nor beloved in the bosom of his own family,—too much of a fatalist to care for the future,—neither enjoying life nor fearing death,—the Turanian is generally free from those vices which contaminate more active minds; he remains sober, temperate, truthful, and kindly in all the relations of life. If, however, he has few vices, he has fewer virtues, and both are far more passive than active in their nature,—in fact, approach more nearly to the instincts of the lower animals than to the intellectual responsibilities of the highest class of minds.

No Turanian race ever distinguished itself in literature, properly so called. They all possessed annals, because they loved to record the names, the dates, and the descent of their ancestors; but these never rose to the dignity of history even in its simplest form. Prose they could hardly write, because none of the greater groups ever appreciated the value of an alphabet. Hieroglyphics, signs, symbols, anything sufficed for their simple intellectual wants, and they preferred trusting to memory to remember what a sign stood for, rather than exercise their intellect to compound or analyse a complex alphabetical arrangement. Their system of poetry helped them, to some extent, over the difficulty; and, with a knowledge of the metre, a few suggestive signs enabled the reader to remember at least a lyric composition. But without a complex grammar to express and an 61alphabet to record their conceptions it is hopeless to expect that either Epic or Dramatic Poetry could flourish, still less that a prose narrative of any extent could be remembered; and philosophy, beyond the use of proverbs, was out of the question.

In their most advanced stages they have, like the Chinese, invented syllabaria of hideous complexity, and have even borrowed alphabets from their more advanced neighbours. By some it is supposed that they have even invented them; but though they have thus got over the mechanical difficulties of the case, their intellectual condition remains the same, and they have never advanced beyond the merest rudiments of a literature, and have never mastered even the elements of any scientific philosophy.

If so singularly deficient in the phonetic modes of literary expression, the Turanian races made up for it to a great extent in the excellence they attained in most of the branches of æsthetic art. As architects they were unsurpassed, and in Egypt alone have left monuments which are still the world’s wonder. The Tamul race in Southern, the Moguls in Northern India, in Burmah, in China, and in Mexico, wherever these races are found, they have raised monuments of dimensions unsurpassed; and, considering the low state of civilisation in which they often existed, displaying a degree of taste and skill as remarkable as it is unexpected.

In consequence of the circumstance above mentioned of their gods having been kings, and after death still only considered as watching over and influencing the destiny of mankind, their temples were only exaggerated palaces, containing halls, and chambers, and thrones, and all the appurtenances required by the living, but on a scale befitting the celestial character now acquired. So much is this the case in Egypt that we hardly know by which name to designate them, and the same remark applies to all.

Even more sacred, however, than their temples were their tombs. Wherever a Turanian race exists or existed, there their tombs remain; and from the Pyramids of Egypt to the mausoleum of Hyder Ali, the last Tartar king in India, they form the most remarkable series of monuments the world possesses, and all were built by people of Turanian race. No Semite and no Aryan ever built a tomb that could last a century or was worthy to remain so long.

The Buddhist reform altered the funereal tumulus into a relic shrine, modifying this, as it did most of the Turanian forms of utterance, from a literal to a somewhat more spiritual form of expression, but leaving the meaning the same,—the Tope being still essentially a Tomb.

62Combined with that wonderful appreciation of form which characterises all the architectural works of the Turanians, they possessed an extraordinary passion for coloured decoration and an instinctive knowledge of the harmony of colours. They used throughout the primitive colours in all their elemental crudeness; and though always brilliant, are never vulgar, and are guiltless of any mistake in harmony. From the first dawn of painting in Egypt to the last signboard in Constantinople or Canton, it is always the same,—the same brilliancy and harmony produced by the simplest means.

In sculpture they were not so fortunate. Having no explanatory literature to which to refer, it was necessary that their statues should tell their whole tale themselves; and sculpture does not lend itself to this so readily as painting. With them it is not sufficient that a god should be colossal, he must be symbolical; he must have more arms and legs or more heads than common men; he must have wings and attributes of power, or must combine the strength of a lion or a bull with the intellect of humanity. The statue must, in short, tell the whole story itself; and where this is attempted the result can only be pleasing to the narrow faith of the unreflecting devotee. So far from being able to express more than humanity, sculpture must attempt even less if it would be successful; but this of course rendered it useless for the purposes to which the Turanians wished to apply it.

The same remarks apply to painting, properly so called. This never can attain its highest development except when it is the exponent of phonetic utterances. In Greece the painter strove only to give form and substance to the more purely intellectual creation of the poet, and could consequently dispense with all but the highest elements of his art. In Egypt the picture was all in all; it had no text to refer to, and must tell the whole tale with all its adjuncts, in simple intelligible prose, or be illegible, and the consequence is that the story is told with a clearness that charms us even now. It is however, only a story; and, like everything else Turanian, however great or wonderful, its greatness and its wonder are of a lower class and less intellectual than the utterances of the other great divisions of the human family.

We have scarcely the means of knowing whether any Turanian race ever successfully cultivated music to any extent. It is more than probable that all their families can and always could appreciate the harmony of musical intervals, and might be charmed with simple cadences; but it is nearly certain that a people who did not possess phonetic poetry could never rise to that higher class of music which is now carried to such a pitch of perfection, that harmonic combinations almost supply the place of phonetic expression and influence the feelings and passions to almost the same extent.

There is also this further peculiarity about their arts, that they 63seem always more instinctive than intellectual, and consequently are incapable of that progress which distinguishes most of the works of man. At the first dawn of art in Egypt, in the age of the Pyramid builders, all the arts were as perfect and as complete as they were when the country fell under the domination of the Romans. The earliest works in China are as perfect—in some respects more so—as those of to-day; and in Mexico, so soon as a race of red savages peopled a country so densely as to require art and to appreciate magnificence, the arts sprung up among them with as much perfection, we may fairly assume, as they would have attained had they been practised for thousands of years under the same circumstances and uninfluenced by foreigners. It is even more startling to find that the arts of the savages who inhabited the south of France, on the skirts of the glacial period, are identical with those of the Esquimaux of the present day, and even at that early time attained a degree of perfection which is startling, and could hardly be surpassed by any people in the same condition of life at the present day.

There is no reason to suppose that any people occupying so low a position in the intellectual scale could ever cultivate anything approaching to abstract science, and there is no proof of it existing. Living, however, as they did, on the verge of the tropics, in the most beautiful climates of the world, and where the sky is generally serene and unclouded, it was impossible but that they should become to some extent astronomers.

It is not known that any of them ever formed any theory to account for the phenomena they observed, but they seem to have watched the paths of the planets, to have recorded eclipses, and generally to have noted times and events with such correctness as enabled them to predict their return with very considerable precision; but here their science stopped, and it is not known that they ever attempted any other of the multifarious branches of modern knowledge.

We have only very imperfect means of knowing what their agriculture was; but it seems always to have been careful when once they passed from the shepherd state, though whether scientific or not it is not easy to say. On the point of artificial irrigation the Turanians have always been singularly expert. Wherever you follow their traces, the existence of a tunnel is almost as certain an indication of their pre-existence as that of a tomb. It is amusing, as it is instructive, to see at this hour an Arab Pacha breaking down in his attempts to restore the irrigation works of the old Pharaohs, or an 64English Engineer officer blundering in his endeavours to copy the works instinctively performed by a Mogul, or a Spaniard trying to drain the lakes of Mexico. Building and irrigation were the special instincts of this old people, and the practical intellect of the higher races seems hardly yet to have come up to the point where these arts were left by the early Turanian races, while the perfection they attained in them is the more singular from the contrast it affords to what they did, or rather, did not do, in other branches of art or science.

From the extraordinary influence the Semitic races have had in the religious development of mankind, we are apt to consider them as politically more important than they really ever were. At no period of their history do they seem to have numbered more than twenty or thirty millions of souls. The principal locality in which they developed themselves was the small tract of country between the Tigris, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; but they also existed as a separate race in Abyssinia, and extended their colonies along the northern coast of Africa. Their intellectual development has been in all ages so superior to that of the Turanian races, that they have subdued them mentally wherever they came in contact with them; and notwithstanding their limited geographical extension, they have influenced the intellect of the Aryan tribes to a greater extent than almost any of their own congeners.

If anything were required to justify the ethnographer in treating the various families of mankind as distinct and separate varieties, it would be the study of the history of the Semitic race. What they were in the time of Abraham, that they are at the present day. A large section of them sojourned in Egypt, among people of a different race, and they came out as unmixed as oil would do that is floated on water. For the last two thousand years they have dwelt dispersed among the Gentiles, without a nationality, almost without a common language, yet they remain the same in feature, the same in intellectual development and feeling, they exhibit the same undying repugnance to all except those of their own blood, which characterised the Arab and the Jew when we first recognise their names in history. So unchangeable are they in this respect, that it seems in vain to try to calculate how long this people must have lived by themselves, separated from other races, that they should have thus acquired that distinctive fixity of character nothing can alter or obliterate, and which is perhaps even more wonderful intellectually than are the woolly hair and physical characteristics of the negro, though not so obvious to the superficial observer.

From the circumstance of our possessing a complete series of the religious literature of the Semitic race, extending over the two thousand years which elapsed between Moses and Mahomet, we are enabled to speak on this point with more precision than we can regarding the doctrines of almost any other people.

The great and distinguishing tenet of this race when pure is and always seems to have been the unity of God, and his not being born of man. Unlike the gods of the Turanians, their Deity never was man, never reigned or lived on earth, but was the Creator and Preserver of the universe, living before all time, and extending beyond all space; though it must be confessed they have not always expressed this idea with the purity and distinctness which might be desired.

It is uncertain how far they adhered to this purity of belief in Assyria, where they were more mixed up with other races than they have ever been before or since. In Syria, where they were superimposed upon and mixed with a people of Turanian origin, they occasionally worshipped stones and groves, serpents, and even bulls; but they inevitably oscillated back to the true faith and retained it to the last. In Arabia, after they became dominant, they cast off their Turanian idolatries, and rallied as one man to the watchword of their race, “There is no God but God,” expressed with a clearness that nothing can obscure, and clung to it with a tenacity that nothing could shake or change. Since then they have never represented God as man, and hardly ever looked upon Him as actuated by the feelings of humanity.

The channel of communication between God and man has always been, with all the Semitic races, by means of prophecy. Prophets are sent, or are inspired, by God, to communicate His will to man, to propound His laws, and sometimes to foretell events; but in all instances without losing their character as men, or becoming more than messengers for the special service for which they are sent.

With the Jews, but with them only, does there seem to have been a priest caste set aside for the special service of God; not selected from all the people, as would have been the case with the casteless Turanians, but deriving their sanctity from descent, as would have been the case with the Aryans; still they differed from the Aryan institution inasmuch as the Levites always retained the characteristics of a tribe, and never approached the form of an aristocracy. They may therefore be considered ethnographically as an intermediate institution, partaking of the characteristics of the other two races.

The one point in which the Semitic form of religion seems to come in contact with the Turanian is that of sacrifice—human, in early 66times perhaps, even till the time of Abraham, but afterwards only of oxen and sheep and goats in hecatombs; and this apparently not among the Arabs, but only with the Jews and the less pure Phœnicians.

From their having no human gods they avoided all the palatial temples or ceremonial forms of idolatrous worship. Strictly speaking, they have no temples. There was one holy place in the old world, the Hill of Zion at Jerusalem, and one in the new dispensation, the Kaaba at Mecca. Solomon, it is true, adorned the first to an extent but little consonant with the true feeling of his race, but the Kaaba remains in its primitive insignificance; and neither of these temples, either then or now, derive their sanctity from the buildings. They are the spots where God’s prophets stood and communicated His will to man. It is true that in after ages a Roman Tetrarch and a Turkish Sultan surrounded these two Semitic cells with courts and cloisters, which made them wonders of magnificence in the cities where they existed; but this does not affect the conclusion that no Semitic race ever erected a durable building, or even thought of possessing more than one temple at a time, or cared to emulate the splendour of the temple-palaces of the Turanians.

Although no Semitic race was ever quite republican, which is a purely Aryan characteristic, they never sank under such an unmitigated despotism as is generally found among the Turanians. When in small nuclei, their form of government is what is generally called patriarchal, the chief being neither necessarily hereditary, nor necessarily elective, but attaining his headship partly by the influence due to age and wisdom, or to virtue, partly to the merits of his connexions, and sometimes of his ancestors; but never wholly to the latter without some reference at least to the former.

In larger aggregations the difficulty of selection made the chiefship more generally hereditary; but even then the power of the King was always controlled by the authority of the written law, and never sank into the pure despotism of the Turanians. With the Jews, too, the sacred caste of the Levites always had considerable influence in checking any excesses of kingly power; but more was due in this respect to their peculiar institution of prophets, who, protected by the sacredness of their office, at all times dared to act the part of tribunes of the people, and to rebuke with authority any attempt on the part of the King to step beyond the limits of the constitution.

One of the most striking characteristics in the morals of the Semitic races is the improvement in the position of woman, and the attempt to elevate her in the scale of existence. If not absolutely monogamic, there is among the Jews, and among the Arabic races where they are pure, a strong tendency in this direction; and but for the example of those nations among whom they were placed, they might have gone further in this direction, and the dignity of mankind have been proportionately improved.

Their worst faults arise from their segregation from the rest of mankind. With them war against all but those of their own race is an obligation and a pleasure, and it is carried on with a relentless cruelty which knows no pity. To smite root and branch, to murder men, women, and children, is a duty which admits of no hesitation, and has stained the character of the Semites in all ages. Against this must be placed the fact that they are patriotic beyond all other races, and steadfast in their faith as no other people have ever been; and among themselves they have been tempered to kindness and charity by the sufferings they have had to bear because of their uncompromising hatred and repugnance to all their fellow-men.

This isolation has had the further effect of making them singularly apathetic to all that most interests the other nations of the earth. What their God has revealed to them through His prophets suffices for them. “God is great,” is a sufficient explanation with them for all the wonders of science. “God wills it,” solves all the complex problems of the moral government of the world. If not such absolute fatalists as the Turanians, they equally shrink from the responsibility of thinking for themselves, or of applying their independent reason to the great problems of human knowledge. They may escape by this from many aberrations that trouble more active minds, but their virtues at best can be but negative, and their vices unredeemed by the higher aspirations that sometimes half ennoble even crime.

In this again we have an immense advance above all the Turanian races. No Semitic people ever used a hieroglyph or mere symbol, or were content to trust to memory only. Everywhere and at all times—so far as we know—they used an alphabet of more or less complicated form. Whether they invented this mode of notation or not is still unknown, but its use by them is certain; and the consequence is that they possess, if not the oldest, at least one of the very oldest literatures of the world. History with them is no longer a mere record 68of names and titles, but a chronicle of events, and with the moral generally elicited. The story and the rhapsody take their places side by side, the preaching and the parable are used to convey their lessons to the world. If they had not the Epos and the Drama, they had lyric poetry of a beauty and a pathos which has hardly ever been surpassed.

It was this possession of an alphabet, conjoined with the sublimity of their monotheistic creed, that gave these races the only superiority to which they have attained. It is this which has enabled them to keep themselves pure and undefiled in all the catastrophes to which they have been exposed, and that still enables their literature and their creed to exert an influence over almost all the nations of the earth, even in times when the people themselves have been held in most supreme contempt.

It may have been partly in consequence of their love of phonetic literature, and partly in order to keep themselves distinct from those great builders the Turanians, that the Semitic races never erected a building worthy of the name; neither at Jerusalem, nor at Tyre or Sidon, nor at Carthage, is there any vestige of Semitic Architectural Art. Not that these have perished, but because they never existed. When Solomon proposed to build a temple at Jerusalem, though plain externally, and hardly so large as an ordinary parish church, he was forced to have recourse to some Turanian people to do it for him, and by a display of gold and silver and brass ornaments to make up for the architectural forms he knew not how to apply.

In Assyria we have palaces of dynasties more or less purely Semitic, splendid enough, but of wood and sunburnt bricks, and only preserved to our knowledge from the accident of their having been so clumsily built as to bury themselves and their wainscot slabs in their own ruins. Though half the people were probably of Turanian origin, their temples seem to have been external and unimportant till Sennacherib and others learnt the art of using stone from the Egyptians, as the Syrians did afterwards from the Romans. During the domination of the last-named people, we have the temples of Palmyra and Baalbec, of Jerusalem and Petra: everywhere an art of the utmost splendour, but with no trace of Semitic feeling or Semitic taste in any part, or in any detail.

The Jewish worship being neither ancestral, nor the bodies of their dead being held in special reverence, they had no tombs worthy of the name. They buried the bodies of their patriarchs and kings with care, and knew where they were laid; but not until after the return from the Babylonish captivity did they either worship there, or mark the 69spot with any architectural forms, though after that epoch we find abundant traces of a tendency towards that especial form of Turanian idolatry. But even then the adornment of their tombs with architectural magnificence cannot be traced back to an earlier period than the time of the Romans; and all that we find marked with splendour of this class was the work of that people, and stamped with their peculiar forms of Art.

Painting and sculpture were absolutely forbidden to the Jews because they were Turanian arts, and because their practice might lead the people to idolatry, so that these nowhere existed: though we cannot understand a people with any mixture of Turanian blood who had not an eye for colour, and a feeling for beauty of form, in detail at least. Music alone was therefore the one æsthetic art of the Semitic races, and, wedded to the lyric verse, seems to have influenced their feelings and excited their passions to an extent unknown to other nations; but to posterity it cannot supply the place of the more permanent arts, whose absence is so much felt in attempting to realise the feelings or aspirations of a people like this.^[19]

As regards the useful arts, the Semites were always more pastoral than agricultural, and have not left in the countries they inhabited any traces of such hydraulic works as the earlier races executed; but in commerce they excelled all nations. The Jews—from their inland situation, cut off from all access to the sea—could not do much in foreign trade; but they always kept up their intercourse with Assyria. The Phœnicians traded backwards and forwards with every part of the Mediterranean, and first opened out a knowledge of the Atlantic; and the Arabs first commenced, and for long afterwards alone carried on, the trade with India. From the earliest dawn of history to the present hour, commerce has been the art which the Semitic nations have cultivated with the greatest assiduity, and in which they consequently have attained the greatest, and an unsurpassed success.

In Asia and in Africa at the present day, all the native trade is carried on by Arabs; and it need hardly be remarked that the monetary transactions of the rest of the world are practically managed by the descendants of those who, one thousand years before Christ, traded from Eziongeber to Ophir.

Although, as before mentioned, Astronomy was cultivated with considerable success both in Egypt and Chaldæa, among the more contemplative Turanians, nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the references to celestial events, either in the Bible or the Koran, both betraying an entire ignorance of even the elements of astronomical science; and we have no proof that the Phœnicians were at all wiser than their neighbours in this respect.

The Semitic races seem always to have been of too poetical a temperament to excel in mathematics or the mechanical sciences. If there is one branch of scientific knowledge which they may be suspected of having cultivated with success, it is the group of natural sciences. A love of nature seems always to have prevailed with them, and they may have known “the trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall, and the names of all the beasts, and the fowls, and the creeping things, and the fishes;” but beyond this we know of nothing that can be dignified by the name of science among the Semitic races. They more than made up however for their deficient knowledge of the exact sciences by the depth of their insight into the springs of human action, and the sagacity of their proverbial philosophy; and, more than even this, by that wonderful system of Theology before which all the Aryan races of the world and many of the Turanian bow at the present hour, and acknowledge it the basis of their faith and the source of all their religious aspirations.

It is extremely difficult to write anything very precise or very satisfactory regarding the Celtic races, for the simple reason that, within the limits of our historic knowledge, they never lived sufficiently long apart from other races to develop a distinct form of nationality, or to create either a literature or a polity by which they could be certainly recognised. In this respect they form the most marked contrast with the Semitic races. Instead of wrapping themselves up within the bounds of the most narrow exclusiveness, the Celt everywhere mixed freely with the people among whom he settled, and adopted their manners and customs with a carelessness that is startling; while at the same time he retained the principal characteristics of his race through every change of circumstance and clime.

Almost the only thing that can be predicated of them with certainty is, that they were either the last wave of the Turanians, or, 71if another nomenclature is preferred, the first wave of the Aryans, who, migrating westward from their parent seat in Asia, displaced the original and more purely Turanian tribes who occupied Europe before the dawn of history. But, in doing this, they seem to have mixed themselves so completely with the races they were supplanting, that it is extremely difficult to say now where one begins or where the other ends.

We find their remains in Asia Minor, whence Ethnologists fancy that they can trace a southern migration along the northern coast of Africa, across the Straits of Gibraltar, into Spain, and thence to Ireland. A more certain and more important migration, however, crossed the Bosphorus, and following the valley of the Danube, threw one branch into Italy, where they penetrated as far south as Rome; while the main body settled in and occupied Gaul and Belgium, whence they peopled Britain, and may have met the southern colonists in the Celtic Island of the west. From this they are now migrating, still following the course of the sun, to carry to the New World the same brilliant thoughtlessness which has so thoroughly leavened all those parts of the Old in which they have settled, and which so sorely puzzles the purer but more matter-of-fact Aryan tribes with which they have come in contact.

It may appear like a hard saying, but it seems nevertheless to be true, to assert that no purely Celtic race ever rose to a perfect conception of the unity of the Godhead. It may be that they only borrowed this from the Turanians who preceded them; but whether imitative or innate, their Theology admits of Kings and Queens of Heaven who were mortals on earth. They possess hosts of saints and angels, and a whole hierarchy of heavenly powers of various degrees, to whom the Celt turns with as confiding hope and as earnest prayer as ever Turanian did to the gods of his Pantheon. If he does not reverence the bodies of the departed as the Egyptian or Chinese, he at least adopts the Buddhist veneration for relics, and attaches far more importance to funereal rites than was ever done by any tribe of Aryans.

The Celt is as completely the slave of a casteless priesthood as ever Turanian Buddhist was, and loves to separate it from the rest of mankind, as representing on earth the hierarchy in heaven, to which, according to the Celtic creed, all may hope to succeed by practice of their peculiar virtues.

To this may be added, that his temples are as splendid, his ceremonials as gorgeous, and the formula as unmeaning as any that ever graced the banks of the Nile, or astonished the wanderer in the valleys of Thibet or on the shores of the Eastern Ocean.

It is still more difficult to speak of the Celtic form of government, as no kingdom of this people ever existed by itself for any length of time; and none, indeed, it may be suspected, could long hold together. It may, however, be safely asserted, that no republican forms are possible with a Celtic people, and no municipal institutions ever flourished among them. The only form, therefore, we know of as peculiarly theirs, is despotism; not necessarily personal, but rendered systematic by centralised bureaucratic organisations, and tempered by laws in those States which have reached any degree of stability or civilisation.

Nothing but a strong centralised despotism can long co-exist with a people too impatient to submit to the sacrifices and self-denial inherent in all attempts at self-government, and too excitable to be controlled, except by the will of the strongest, though it may also be the least scrupulous among them.

When in small bodies they are always governed by a chief, generally hereditary, but always absolute; who is looked up to with awe, and obeyed with a reverence that is unintelligible to the more independent races of mankind.

With such institutions, of course a real aristocracy is impossible; and the restraints of caste must always have been felt to be intolerable. “La carrière ouverte aux talens” is their boast; though not to the same extent as with the Turanians; and the selfish gratification of individual ambition is consequently always preferred with them to the more sober benefit of the general advancement of the community.

If the Celts never were either polygamic or polyandric, they certainly always retained very lax ideas with regard to the marriage-vow, and never looked on woman’s mission as anything higher than to minister to their sensual gratification. With them the woman that fulfils this quality best always commands their admiration most. Beauty can do no wrong—but without beauty woman can hardly rise above the level of the common herd.

The ruling passion in the mind of the Celt is war. Not like the exclusive, intolerant Semite, a war of extermination or of proselytism, but war from pure “gaieté de cœur” and love of glory. No Celt fears to die if his death can gain fame or add to the stock of his country’s glory; nor in a private fight does he fear death or feel the pain of a broken head, if he has had a chance of shooting through the heart or 73cracking the skull of his best friend at the same time. The Celt’s love of excitement leads him frequently into excesses, and to a disregard of truth and the virtues belonging to daily life, which are what really dignify mankind; but his love of glory and of his country often go far to redeem these deficiencies, and spread a halo over even his worst faults, which renders it frequently difficult to blame what we feel in soberness we ought to condemn.

If love and war are the parents of song, the bard and the troubadour ought to have left us a legacy of verse that would have filled the libraries of Europe; and so they probably would had not the original Celt been too illiterate to care to record the expressions of his feelings. As it is, nine-tenths of the lyric literature of Europe is of Celtic origin. The Epos and the Drama may belong to the Aryan; but in the art of wedding music to immortal verse, and pouring forth a passionate utterance in a few but beautiful words, the Celtic is only equalled by the Semitic race.

Their remaining literature is of such modern growth, and was so specially copied from what had preceded it, or so influenced by the contemporary effusions of other people, that it is impossible accurately to discriminate what is due to race and what to circumstances. All that can safely be said is, that Celtic literature is always more epigrammatic, more brilliant, and more daring than that of the sober Aryan; but its coruscations neither light to so great a depth, nor last so long as less dazzling productions might do. They may be the most brilliant, but they certainly do not belong to the highest class of literary effort; nor is their effect on the destiny of man likely to be so permanent.

The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence. It is perhaps not too much to assert that without his intervention we should not have possessed in modern times a church worthy of admiration, or a picture or a statue we could look at without shame.

In their arts, too,—either from their higher status, or from their admixture with Aryans,—we escape the instinctive fixity which makes the arts of the pure Turanian as unprogressive as the works of birds or of beavers. Restless intellectual progress characterises everything they perform; and had their arts not been nipped in the bud by circumstances over which they had no control, we might have seen something that would have shamed even Greece and wholly eclipsed the arts of Rome.

74They have not, it is true, that instinctive knowledge of colour which distinguishes the Turanian, nor have they been able to give to music that intellectual culture which has been elaborated by the Aryans: but in the middle path between the two they excel both. They are far better musicians than the former, and far better colourists than the last-named races; but in modern Europe Architecture is practically their own. Where their influence was strongest, there Architecture was most perfect; as they decayed, or as the Aryan influence prevailed, the art first languished, and then died.

Their quasi-Turanian theology required Temples almost as grand as those of the Copts or Tamuls; and, like them, they sought to honour those who had been mortals by splendour which mortals are assumed to be pleased with; and the pomp of their worship always surpassed that with which they honoured their Kings. Even more remarkable than this is the fact that they could and did build Tombs such as a Turanian might have envied, not for their size but for their art, and even now can adorn their cemeteries with monuments which are not ridiculous.

When a people are so mixed up with other races as the Celts are in Europe,—frequently so fused as to be undistinguishable,—it is almost impossible to speak with precision with regard either to their arts or influence. It must in consequence be safer to assert that where no Celtic blood existed there no real art is found; though it is perhaps equally true to assert that not only Architecture, but Painting and Sculpture, have been patronised, and have flourished in the exact ratio in which Celtic blood is found prevailing in any people in Europe; and has died out as Aryan influence prevails, in spite of their methodical efforts to indoctrinate themselves with what must be the spontaneous impulse of genius, if it is to be of any value.

Of their sciences we know nothing till they were so steeped in the civilisation of older races that originality was hopeless. Still, in the stages through which the intellect of Europe has yet passed, they have played their part with brilliancy. But now that knowledge is assuming a higher and more prosaic phase, it is doubtful whether the deductive brilliancy of the Celtic mind can avail anything against the inductive sobriety of the Aryan. So long as metaphysics were science, and science was theory, the peculiar form of the Celtic mind was singularly well adapted to see through sophistry and to guess the direction in which truth might lie. But now that we have only to question Nature, to classify her answers, and patiently to record results, its mission seems to have passed away. Truth in all its majesty, and 75Nature in all her greatness, must now take the place of speculation, with its cleverness, and man’s ideas of what might or should be, must be supplanted by the knowledge of God’s works as they exist and the contemplation of the eternal grandeur of the universe which we see around us.

Though these are the highest, they are at the same time the most sober functions of the human mind; and while conferring the greatest and most lasting benefit, not only on the individual who practises them, but also on the human race, they are neither calculated to gratify personal vanity, nor to reward individual ambition.

Such pursuits are not, therefore, of a nature to attract or interest the Celtic races, but must be left to those who are content to sink their personality in seeking the advantage of the common weal.

According to their own chronology, it seems to have been about the year 3101 B.C. that the Aryans crossed the Indus and settled themselves in the country between that river and the Jumna, since known among themselves as Arya Varta, or the Country of the Just, for all succeeding ages.

More than a thousand years afterwards we find them, in the age of the Ramayana, occupying all the country north of the Vindya range, and attempting the conquest of the southern country,—then, as now, occupied by Turanians,—and penetrating as far as Ceylon.

Eight hundred years later we see them in the Mahabharata, having lost much of their purity of blood, and adopting many of the customs and much of the faith of the people they were settled amongst; and three centuries before Christ we find they had so far degenerated as to accept, almost without a struggle, the religion of Buddha; which, though no doubt a reform, and an important one, on the Anthropic doctrines of the pure Turanians, was still essentially a faith of a Turanian people; congenial to them, and to them only.

Ten centuries after Christ, when the Moslems came in contact with India, the Aryan was a myth. The religion of the earlier people was everywhere supreme, and with only a nominal thread of Aryanism running through the whole, just sufficient to bear testimony to the prior existence of a purer faith, but not sufficient to leaven the mass to any appreciable extent.

The fate of the western Aryans differed essentially from that of those who wandered eastward. Theoretically we ought to assume, from their less complex language and less pure faith, that they were an earlier offshoot; but it may be that in the forests of Europe they 76lost for a while the civilised forms which the happier climate of Arya Varta enabled the others to retain; or it may be that the contact with the more nearly equal Celtic races had mixed the language and the faith of the western races, before they had the opportunity or the leisure to record the knowledge they brought with them.

Be this as it may, they first appear prominently in the western world in Greece, where, by a fortunate union with the Pelasgi, a people apparently of Turanian race, they produced a civilisation not purely Aryan, and somewhat evanescent in its character, but more brilliant, while it lasted, than anything the world had seen before, and in certain respects more beautiful than anything that has illumined it since their time.

They next sprang forth in Rome, mixed with the Turanian Etruscans and the powerful Celtic tribes of Italy; and lastly in Northern Europe, where they are now working out their destiny, but to what issue the future only can declare.

The essential difference between the eastern and western migration is this—that in India the Aryans have sunk gradually into the arms of a Turanian people till they have lost their identity, and with it all that ennobled them when they went there, or could enable them now to influence the world again.

In Europe they found the country cleared of Turanians by the earlier Celts; and mingling their blood with these more nearly allied races, they have raised themselves to a position half way between the two. Where they found the country unoccupied they have remained so pure that, as their number multiplies, they may perhaps regain something of the position they had temporarily abandoned, and something of that science which, it may be fancied, mankind only knew in their primeval seats.

What then was the creed of the primitive Aryans? So far as we can now see, it was the belief in one great ineffable God,—so great that no human intellect could measure His greatness,—so wonderful that no human language could express His qualities,—pervading everything that was made,—ruling all created things,—a spirit, around, beyond the universe, and within every individual particle of it. A creed so ethereal could not long remain the faith of the multitude, and we early find fire,—the most ethereal of the elements,—looked to as an emblem of the Deity. The heavens too received a name, and became an entity:—so did our mother earth. To these succeeded the sun, the stars, the elements,—but never among the pure Aryans as gods, or as influencing the destiny of man, but as manifestations of His power, and reverenced because they were visible manifestations of a Being too 77abstract for an ordinary mind to grasp. Below this the Aryans never seem to have sunk.

With a faith so elevated of course no temple could be wanted; no human ceremonial could be supposed capable of doing honour to a Deity so conceived; nor any sacrifice acceptable to Him to whom all things belonged. With the Aryans worship was a purely domestic institution; prayer the solitary act of each individual man, standing alone in the presence of an omniscient Deity. All that was required was that man should acknowledge the greatness of God, and his own comparative insignificance; should express his absolute trust and faith in the beneficence and justice of his God, and a hope that he might be enabled to live so pure, and so free from sin, as to deserve such happiness as this world can afford, and be enabled to do as much good to others as it is vouchsafed to man to perform.

A few insignificant formulæ served to mark the modes in which these subjects should recur. The recitation of a time-honoured hymn refreshed the attention of the worshipper, and the reading of a few sacred texts recalled the duties it was expected he should perform. With these simple ceremonies the worship of the Aryans seems to have begun and ended.

Even in later times, when their blood has become less pure, and their feelings were influenced by association with those among whom they resided, the religion of the Aryans always retained its intellectual character. No dogma was ever admitted that would not bear the test of reason, and no article of faith was ever assented to which seemed to militate against the supremacy of intellect over all feelings and passions. In all their wanderings they were always prepared to admit the immeasurable greatness of the one incorporeal Deity, and the impossibility of the human intellect approaching or forming any adequate conception of His majesty.

When they abandoned the domestic form of worship, they adopted the congregational, and then not so much with the idea that it was pleasing to God, as in order to remind each other of their duties, to regulate and govern the spiritual wants of the community, and to inculcate piety towards God and charity towards each other.

It need hardly be added that superstition is impossible with minds so constituted, and that science must always be the surest and the best ally of a religion so pure and exalted, which is based on a knowledge of God’s works, a consequent appreciation of their greatness, and an ardent aspiration towards that power and goodness which the finite intellect of man can never hope to reach.

The most marked characteristic of the Aryans is their innate passion for self-government. If not absolutely republican, the tendency of all their institutions, at all times, has been towards that form, and in almost the exact ratio to the purity of the blood do they adopt this form of autocracy. If kingly power was ever introduced among them, it was always in the form of a limited monarchy; never the uncontrolled despotism of the other races; and every conceivable check was devised to prevent encroachments of the crown, even if such were possible among a people so organised as the Aryans always have been.

With them every town was a municipality, every village a little republic, and every trade a separate self-governing guild. Many of these institutions have died out, or else fallen into neglect, in those communities where equal rights and absolute laws have rendered each individual a king in his own person, and every family a republic in itself.

The village system which the Aryans introduced into India is still the most remarkable of its institutions. These little republican organisms have survived the revolutions of fifty centuries. Neither the devastations of war nor the indolence of peace seems to have affected them. Under Brahmin, Buddhist, or Moslem, they remain the same unchanged and unchangeable institutions, and neither despotism nor anarchy has been able to alter them. They alone have saved India from sinking into a state of savage imbecility, under the various hordes of conquerors who have at times overrun her; and they, with the Vedas and the laws afterwards embodied by Menu, alone remain as records of the old Aryan possessors of the Indian peninsula.

Municipalities, which are merely an enlargement of the Indian village system, exist wherever the Romans were settled, or where the Aryan races exist in Europe; and though guilds are fast losing their significance, it was the Teutonic guilds that alone checked and ultimately supplanted the feudal despotisms of the Celts.

Caste is another institution of these races, which has always more or less influenced all their actions. Where their blood has become so impure as it is in India, caste has degenerated into an abuse; but where it is a living institution, it is perhaps as conducive to the proper regulation of society as any with which we are acquainted. The one thing over which no man can have any control is the accident of his birth; but it is an immense gain to him that he should be satisfied with the station in which he finds himself, and content to do his duty in the sphere in which he was born. Caste, properly understood, never interferes with the accumulation of wealth or power within the limits of the 79class, and only recognises the inevitable accident of birth: while the fear of losing caste is one of the most salutary checks which has been devised to restrain men from acts unworthy of their social position. It is an enormous gain to society that each man should know his station and be prepared to perform the duties belonging to it, without the restless craving of a selfish ambition that would sacrifice everything for the sake of the personal aggrandisement of the individual. It is far better to acknowledge that there is no sphere in life in which man may not become as like unto the gods as in any other sphere; and it is everywhere better to respect the public good rather than to seek to gratify personal ambition.

The populations of modern Europe have become so mixed that neither caste nor any other Aryan institution now exists in its pristine purity; but in the ratio in which a people is Aryan do they possess an aristocracy and municipal institutions; and, what is almost of more importance, in that ratio are the people prepared to respect the gradations of caste in society, and to sacrifice their individual ambition to the less brilliant task of doing all the good that is possible in the spheres in which they have been placed.

It is true, and so has been found, that an uncontrolled despotism is a sharper, a quicker, and a better tool for warlike purposes, or where national vanity is to be gratified by conquest or the display of power; but the complicated, and it may be clumsy, institutions of the Aryans, are far more lasting and more conducive to individual self-respect, and far more likely to add to the sum of human happiness, and tend more clearly to the real greatness and moral elevation of mankind, than any human institution we are yet acquainted with.

So far as our experience now goes, the division of human society into classes or castes is not only the most natural concomitant of the division of labour, but is also the most beneficent of the institutions of man; while the organisation of a nation into self-governing municipalities is not only singularly conducive to individual well-being, but renders it practically indestructible by conquest, and even imperishable through lapse of time. These two are the most essentially characteristic institutions of the Aryans.

In morals the Aryans were always monogamic, and with them alone does woman always assume a perfect equality of position: mistress of her own actions till marriage; when married, in theory at least, the equal sharer in the property and in the duties of the household. Were it possible to carry out these doctrines absolutely in practice, they would probably be more conducive to human happiness than any of 80those enumerated above; but even a tendency towards them is an enormous gain.

Their institutions for self-government, enumerated above, have probably done more to elevate the Aryan race than can well be appreciated. When every man takes, or may take, his share in governing the commonwealth—when every man must govern himself, and respect the independence of his neighbour—men cease to be tools, and become independent reasoning beings. They are taught self-respect, and with this comes love of truth—of those qualities which command the respect of their fellow-men; and they are likewise taught that control of their passions which renders them averse to war; while the more sober occupations of life prevent the necessity of their seeking, in the wildness of excitement, that relief from monotony which so frequently drives other races into those excesses the world has had so often to deplore. The existence of caste, even in its most modified form, prevents individual ambition from having that unlimited career which among other races has so often sacrificed the public weal to the ambition of an individual.

The Aryan races employed an alphabet at so early a period of their history that we cannot now tell when or how it was introduced among them; and it was, even when we first become acquainted with it, a far more perfect alphabet than that of the Semitic races, though apparently formed on its basis. Nothing in it was dependent on memory. It possessed vowels, and all that was necessary to enunciate sounds with perfect and absolute precision. In consequence of this, and of the perfect structure of their language, they were enabled to indulge in philosophical speculation, to write treatises on grammar and logic, and generally to assume a literary position which other races never attained to.

History with them was not a mere record of dates or collection of genealogical tables, but an essay on the polity of mankind, to which the narrative afforded the illustration; while their poetry had always a tendency to assume more a didactic than a lyric form. It is among the Aryans that the Epos first rose to eminence and the Drama was elevated above a mere spectacle; but even in these the highest merit sought to be attained was that they should represent vividly events which might have taken place, even if they never did happen among men; while the Celts and the Semites delight in wild imaginings which never could have existed except in the brain of the poet. When the blood of the Aryan has been mixed with that of other races, they have produced a literature eminently imaginative and poetic; but in proportion to their purity has been their tendency towards a 81more prosaic style of composition. The aim of the race has always been the attainment of practical common sense, and the possession of this quality is their pride and boast, and justly so; but it is unfortunately antagonistic to the existence of an imaginative literature, and we must look to them more for eminence in works on history and philosophy than in those which require imagination or creative power.

These remarks apply with more than double force to the Fine Arts than to verbal literature. In the first place a people possessing such a power of phonetic utterance never could look on a picture or statue as more than a mere subsidiary illustration of the written text. A painting may represent vividly one view of what took place at one moment of time, but a written narrative can deal with all the circumstances and link it to its antecedents and effects. A statue of a man cannot tell one-tenth of what a short biography will make plain: and an ideal statue or ideal painting may be a pretty Celtic plaything, but it is not what Aryans hanker after.

With Architecture the case is even worse. Convenience is the first thing which the practical common sense of the Aryan seeks, and then to gain what he desires by the readiest and the easiest means. This done, why should he do more? If, induced by a desire to emulate others, he has to make his building ornamental, he is willing to copy what experience has proved to be successful in former works, willing to spend his money and to submit to some inconvenience; but in his heart he thinks it useless, and he neither will waste his time in thinking on the subject, nor apply those energies of his mind to its elaboration, without which nothing great or good was ever done in Art.

In addition to this, the immaterial nature of their faith has always deprived the Aryan races of the principal incentive to architectural magnificence.^[20] The Turanian and Celtic races always have the most implicit faith in ceremonial worship and in the necessity of architectural splendour as its indispensable accompaniment. On the other hand, the more practical Aryan can never be brought to understand that prayer is either more sincere or is more acceptable in one form of house than in any other. He does not feel that virtue can be increased or vice exterminated by the number of bricks or stones that may be heaped on one another, or the form in which they may be placed; nor will his conception of the Deity admit of supposing 82that He can be propitiated by palaces or halls erected in honour of Him, or that a building in the Middle Pointed Gothic is more acceptable than one in the Classic or any other style.

This want of faith may be reasonable, but it is fatal to poetry in Art, and, it is feared, will prevent the Aryans from attaining more excellence in Architectural Art at the present time than they have done in former ages.

It is also true that the people are singularly deficient in their appreciation of colours. Not that actual colour-blindness is more common with them than with other races, but the harmony of tints is unknown to them. Some may learn, but none feel it; it is a matter of memory and an exercise of intellect, but no more. So, too, with form. Other—even savage—races cannot go wrong in this respect. If the Aryan is successful in art, it is generally in consequence of education, not from feeling; and, like all that is not innate in man, it yields only a secondary gratification, and fails to impress his brother man, or to be a real work of Art.

From these causes the ancient Aryans never erected a single building in India when they were pure, nor in that part of India which they colonised even after their blood became mixed; and we do not now know what their style was or is, though the whole of that part of the peninsula occupied by the Turanians, or to which their influence ever extended, is, and always was, covered by buildings, vast in extent and wonderful from their elaboration. This, probably, also is the true cause of the decline of Architecture and other arts in Europe and in the rest of the modern world. Wherever the Aryans appear Art flies before them, and where their influence extends utilitarian practical common sense is assumed to be all that man should aim at. It may be so, but it is sad to think that beauty cannot be combined with sense.

Music alone, as being the most phonetic of the fine arts, has received among the Aryans a degree of culture denied to the others; but even here the tendency has been rather to develop scientific excellence than to appeal to the responsive chords of the human heart. Notwithstanding this, its power is more felt and greater excellence is attained in this science than in any other. It also has escaped the slovenly process of copying, with which the unartistic mind of the Aryans has been content to fancy it was creating Art in other branches.

If, however, these races have been so deficient in the fine arts, they have been as excellent in all the useful ones. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, ship-building, and road-making, all that tends to accumulate wealth or to advance material prosperity, has been developed to an extent as great as it is unprecedented, and promises to produce results which as yet can only be dimly guessed at. A great, 83and, so far as we can see, an inevitable revolution, is pervading the whole world through the devotion of the Aryan races to these arts. We have no reason for supposing it will be otherwise than beneficial, however much we may feel inclined to regret that the beautiful could not be allowed to share a little of that worship so lavishly bestowed on the useful.

It follows, as a matter of course, that, with minds so constituted, the Aryans should have cultivated science with earnestness and success. The only beauty they, in fact, appreciated was the beauty of scientific truth; the only harmony they ever really felt was that of the laws of nature; and the only art they ever cared to cultivate was that which grouped these truths and their harmonies into forms which enabled them to be easily grasped and appreciated. Mathematics always had especial charms to the Aryan mind; and, more even than this, astronomy was always captivating. So, also, were the mechanical, and so, too, the natural sciences. It is to the Aryans that Induction owes its birth, and they probably alone have the patience and the sobriety to work it to its legitimate conclusions.

The true mission of the Aryan races appears to be to pervade the world with the useful and industrial arts, and so tend to reproduce that unity which has long been lost, to raise man, not by magnifying his individual cleverness, but by accumulating a knowledge of the works of God, so tending to make him a greater and wiser, and at the same time a humbler and a more religious servant of his Creator.

When Auguste Comte proposed that classification which made the fortune of his philosophy,—when he said that all mankind passed through the theological state in childhood, the metaphysical in youth, and the philosophical or positive in manhood,—and ventured to extend this discovery to nations, he had a glimpse, as others have had before him, of the beauty of the great harmony which pervades all created things. But he had not philosophy enough to see that the one great law is so vast and so remote, that no human intellect can grasp it, and that it is only the little fragments of that great scheme which are found everywhere which man is permitted to understand.

Had he known as much of ethnographical as he did of mathematical science, he would have perceived that there is no warrant for this daring generalisation; but that nations, in the states which he calls the theological, the metaphysical, and the philosophical, exist now and 84coexisted through all the ages of the world to which our historical knowledge extends.

What the Egyptians were when they first appeared on the scene they were when they perished under the Greek and Roman sway;—what the Chinese always were they now are;—the Jews and Arabs are unchanged to this day;—the Celts are as daringly speculative and as blindly superstitious now as we always found them;—and the Aryans of the Vedas or of Tacitus were very much the same sober, reasoning, unimaginative, and unartistic people as they are at this hour. Progress among men, as among the animals, seems to be achieved not so much by advances made within the limits of the group, as by the supercession of the less finely organised beings by those of a higher class;—and this, so far as our knowledge extends, is accomplished neither by successive creations, nor by the gradual development of one species out of another, but by the successive prominent appearances of previously developed, though partially dormant creations.

Ethnographers have already worked out this problem to a great extent, and arrived at a very considerable degree of certainty, through the researches of patient linguistic investigators. But language is in itself too impalpable ever to give the science that tangible, local reality which is necessary to its success; and it is here that Archæology comes so opportunely to its aid. What men dug or built remains where it was first placed, and probably retains the first impressions it received: and so fixes the era and standing of those who called it into existence; so that even those who cannot appreciate the evidence derived from grammar or from words, may generally see at a glance what the facts of the case really are.

It is even more important that such a science as Ethnology should have two or more methods of investigation at its command. Certainty can hardly ever be attained by only one process, unless checked and elucidated by others, and nothing can therefore be more fortunate than the possession of so important a sister science as that of Archæology to aid in the search after scientific truth.

If Ethnology may thus be so largely indebted to Archæology, the converse is also true; and she may pay back the debt with interest. As Archæology and Architecture have hitherto been studied, they, but more especially the latter, have been little more than a dry record of facts and measurements, interesting to the antiquary, to the professional architect, or to the tourist, who finds it necessary to get up a certain amount of knowledge on the subject; but the utmost that has hitherto been sought to be attained is a certain knowledge of the forms of the art, while the study of it, as that of one of the most important and most instructive of the sciences connected with the history of man, has been as a rule neglected.

85Without this the study of Architecture is a mere record of bricks and stones, and of the modes in which they were heaped together for man’s use. Considered in the light of an historical record, it acquires not only the dignity of a science, but especial interest as being one of those sciences which are most closely connected with man’s interests and feelings, and the one which more distinctly expresses and more clearly records what man did and felt in previous ages, than any other study we are acquainted with.

From this point of view, not only every tomb and every temple, but even the rude monoliths and mounds of savages, acquire a dignity and interest to which they have otherwise no title; and man’s works become not only man’s most imperishable record, but one of the best means we possess of studying his history, or of understanding his nature or his aspirations.

Rightly understood, Archæology is as useful as any other branch of science or of art, in enabling us to catch such glimpses as are vouchsafed to man of the great laws that govern all things; and the knowledge that this class of man’s works is guided and governed by those very laws, and not by the chance efforts of unmeaning minds, elevates the study of it to as high a position as that of any other branch of human knowledge.

PART I.—ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE. — INTRODUCTORY.

BOOK I. EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. — CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

In any consecutive narrative of the architectural undertakings of mankind the description of what was done in Egypt necessarily commences the series, not only because the records of authentic history are found in the Valley of the Nile long before the traditions of other nations had assumed anything like tangible consistency, but because, from the earliest dawn down to the time when Christianity struck down the old idolatry, the inhabitants of that mysterious land were essentially and pre-eminently a building race. Were it not for this we should be left with the dry bones of the skeleton of her history, which is all that is left us of the dynasties of Manetho; or with the fables in which ignorant and credulous European travellers expressed their wonder at a civilisation they could not comprehend.

As the case now stands, the monuments of Egypt give life and reality to their whole history. It is impossible for any educated man capable of judging of the value of evidence to wander among the Pyramids and tombs of Memphis, the Temples of Thebes, or the vast structures erected by the Ptolemys or Cæsars, and not to feel that he has before him a chapter of history more authentic than we possess of any nation at all approaching it in antiquity, and a picture of men and manners more vivid and more ample than remains to us of any other people who have passed away.

As we wander among the tombs or temples of Egypt we see the very chisel-marks of the mason, and the actual colours of the painter which were ordered by a Khufu, or a Rameses, and we stand face to face with works the progress of which they watched, and which they designed in order to convey to posterity what their thoughts and feelings were, and what they desired to record for the instruction of future generations. All is there now, and all who care may learn what these old kings intended should be known by their remotest posterity.

92Immense progress has been made in unravelling the intricacies of Egyptian history since the time when Champollion, profiting by the discovery of Young, first translated the hieroglyphical inscriptions that cover the walls of Egyptian buildings. Of late years it has been too frequently assumed that his works, with those of Rosellini, of Wilkinson, and Lepsius, and the numerous other authors who have applied themselves to Egyptology, had told us all we are ever likely to know of her history. In so far as the epochs of the great Pharaonic dynasties of Thebes are concerned this may be partially true, but it is only since M. Mariette undertook the systematic exploration of the great Necropolis of Memphis that we have been enabled to realise the importance of the older dynasties, and become aware of the completeness of the records they have left behind them. Much as we have learned during the last fifty years, the recent explorations of Maspero, W. M. Flinders Petrie and others have taught us that the soil of Egypt is not half exhausted yet; and every day our knowledge is assuming a consistency and completeness as satisfactory as it is wonderful.

Although there are still minor differences of opinion with regard to the details of Egyptian chronology, still the divergences between the various systems proposed are gradually narrowing in extent. The sequence of events is certain, and accepted by all. The initial date, and the adjustments depending on it, are alone in dispute. The truth is that every subsequent step in the investigation has tended more and more to prove the correctness of the data furnished by the lists of Manetho, and the only important question is, “what is Manetho?” His work is lost. The only real extracts we have from the original are those in ‘Josephus contra Apion.’ The lists in Eusebius and Syncellus or Africanus have avowedly been adjusted to suit preconceived theories of Biblical chronology; but on the whole a great preponderance of evidence seems in favour of assuming that he really intended to fix the year 3906 as the initial year of the reign of Menes,^[24] or some year within a very short distance of that date. Some years ago this would have seemed to suffice, but so many new monuments have been disinterred of late, so many new names of kings added to our lists, that the tendency is now rather to extend than to contract this limit of duration.

Be this as it may, what we really do know absolutely is that there was an old kingdom of pyramid-builders, comprising the first ten dynasties of Manetho, who reigned at Memphis. These, after a period of decadence, were superseded by kings of a different race coming from the south; and that these, after a short period of glory, were conquered by an Asiatic race of hated Shepherd kings.

93After five centuries of foreign domination, the Shepherds in their turn were driven out, and the new kingdom founded. This, after witnessing the glories of the 18th and 19th dynasties, declined during the next seven dynasties till they were struck down by the Persian Cambyses.

A third period of architectural magnificence arose with the Ptolemys, and was continued by the Cæsars on nearly the same scale of magnificence as the second kingdom; but wanting its exuberant nationality, and far below the quiet grandeur of the earlier epoch.

In counting backwards the dates of these dynasties, the first authentic synchronism we meet with is that of Shishak, the first king of the 22nd dynasty, contemporary with Rehoboam, about 970 B.C.

The next is the Exode of the Jews, which took place 1312 B.C., under the reign of Meneptah II., the fourth king of the 19th dynasty of Manetho. Many would place it earlier, but none probably would bring that event down to a more modern date.

From this date Josephus tells us that Manetho counted 518 years to the expulsion of the Shepherds, and 511 for the duration of their sojourn in Egypt,^[25] we thus get back to 2340 for the first year of Salatis. There then remain only fifteen centuries and a half, in which we have to arrange the two great Theban dynasties (the 11th and 12th), which reigned for more than two centuries over the whole of Egypt; while the 12th seems to have extended some distance into the period occupied by the Shepherds. We are thus left with little more than 1300 years over which to spread the ten first dynasties, notwithstanding that some 60 or 70 of their royal sepulchral pyramids still adorn the banks of the Nile; and we have many names to which no tombs can be attached, and many pyramids may have perished during the 5000 years which have elapsed since the greater number of them were erected.

Long as these periods may to some appear, they are certainly the shortest that any one familiar with the recent progress of Egyptian research would be willing to assign to them. But in whatever light they may be viewed, they sink into utter insignificance when compared with the periods that must have elapsed before Egypt could have reached that stage of civilisation in which we find her when her existence first dawns upon us. If one point in Egyptian history is proved with more certainty than another, it is that the great Pyramids of Gizeh were erected by the kings of the 4th dynasty: and it seems impossible to find room for the now ascertained facts of Egyptian chronology, unless we place their erection between 3000 and 3500 years before the Christian era.

No one can possibly examine the interior of the Great Pyramid 94without being struck with astonishment at the wonderful mechanical skill displayed in its construction. The immense blocks of granite brought from Syene—a distance of 500 miles—polished like glass, and so fitted that the joints can hardly be detected. Nothing can be more wonderful than the extraordinary amount of knowledge displayed in the construction of the discharging chambers over the roof of the principal apartment, in the alignment of the sloping galleries, in the provision of ventilating shafts, and in all the wonderful contrivances of the structure. All these, too, are carried out with such precision, that, notwithstanding the immense superincumbent weight, no settlement in any part can be detected to the extent of an appreciable fraction of an inch. Nothing more perfect, mechanically, has ever been erected since that time; and we ask ourselves in vain, how long it must have taken before men acquired such experience and such skill, or were so perfectly organised, as to contemplate and complete such undertakings.

Around the base of the pyramid are found numerous structural tombs, whose walls bear the cartouche of the same king—Khufu—whose name was found by Colonel Howard Vyse in one of the previously unopened chambers of the Great Pyramid.^[26] These are adorned with paintings so numerous and so complete, as to enable us to realise with singular completeness the state of Egyptian society at that early period.

On their walls the owner of the tomb is usually represented seated, offering first fruits on a simple table-altar to an unseen god. He is generally accompanied by his wife, and surrounded by his stewards and servants, who enumerate his wealth in horned cattle, in asses, in sheep and goats, in geese and ducks. In other pictures some are ploughing and sowing, some reaping or thrashing out the corn, while others are tending his tame monkeys or cranes, and other domesticated pets. Music and dancing add to the circle of domestic enjoyments, and fowling and fishing occupy his days of leisure. No sign of soldiers or of warlike strife appears in any of these pictures; no arms, no chariots or horses. No camels suggest foreign travel. Everything there represented speaks of peace at home and abroad,^[27] of agricultural wealth and consequent content. In all these pictures the men are represented with an ethnic and artistic truth that enables us easily to recognise their race and station. The animals are not only easily distinguishable, but the characteristic peculiarities of each species are seized with a power of generalisation seldom if ever surpassed; and the hieroglyphic system which forms the legend and explains the whole, was as complete and perfect then as at any future period.

95More striking than even the paintings are the portrait-statues which have recently been discovered in the secret recesses of these tombs; nothing more wonderfully truthful and realistic has been done since that time, till the invention of photography, and even that can hardly represent a man with such unflattering truthfulness as these old coloured terra-cotta portraits of the sleek rich men of the pyramid period.

Wonderful as all this maturity of art may be when found at so early a period, the problem becomes still more perplexing when we again ask ourselves how long a people must have lived and recorded their experience before they came to realise and aspire to an eternity such as the building of these pyramids shows that they sacrificed everything to attain. One of their great aims was to preserve the body intact for 3000 years, in order that the soul might again be united with it when the day of judgment arrived. But what taught them to contemplate such periods of time with confidence, and, stranger still, how did they learn to realise so daring an aspiration?

Nor is our wonder less when we ask ourselves how it happened that such a people became so thoroughly organised at that early age as to be willing to undertake the greatest architectural works the world has since seen in honour of one man from among themselves? A king without an army, and with no claim, so far as we can see, to such an honour beyond the common consent of all, which could hardly have been obtained except by the title of long inherited services acknowledged by the community at large.

It would be difficult to find any other example which so fully illustrates the value of architecture as a mode of writing history as this. It is possible there may have been nations as old and as early civilised as the Egyptians: but they were not builders, and their memory is lost. It is to their architecture alone that we owe the preservation of what we know of this old people. And it is the knowledge so obtained that adds such interest to the study of their art.

In the present state of our knowledge it may seem an idle speculation to suggest that the Egyptian and Chinese are two fragments of one great primordial race, widely separated now by the irruption of other Turanian and Aryan races between them; but this at least is certain, that in manners and customs, in arts and polity, in religion and civilisation, these two peoples more closely resemble one another than any other two nations which have existed since, even when avowedly of similar race and living in proximity to one another.

At the earliest period at which Chinese history opens upon us, we find the same amount of civilisation maintaining itself utterly unprogressively to the present day. The same peaceful industry and agricultural wealth accompanied by the same outwardly pleasing domestic 96relations and apparent content. The same exceptional mode of writing. The same want of power to assimilate with surrounding nations. Both hating war, but reverencing their kings, and counting their chronology by dynasties exactly as the Egyptians have always done. Their religions seem wonderfully alike, and both are characterised by the same fearlessness of death, and the same calm enjoyment in the contemplation of its advent.^[28]

In fact there is no peculiarity in the old kingdom of Egypt that has not its counterpart in China at the present day, though more or less modified, perhaps, by local circumstances; and there is nothing in the older system which we cannot understand by using proper illustrations, derived from what we see passing under our immediate observation in the far East. The great lesson we learn from the study of the history of China as bearing on that of Egypt is, that all idea of the impossibility of the recorded events in the latter country is taken away by reference to the other. Neither the duration of the Egyptian dynasties, nor the early perfection of her civilisation, or its strange persistency, can be objected to as improbable. What we know has happened in Asia in modern times may certainly have taken place in Africa, though at an earlier period.

CHAPTER II. THE PYRAMIDS AND CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS. — Medum. — Tombs. — Temples.

Leaving these speculations to be developed more fully in the sequel, let us now turn to the pyramids—the oldest, largest, and most mysterious of all the monuments of man’s art now existing. All those in Egypt are situated on the left bank of the Nile, just beyond the cultivated ground, and on the edge of the desert, and all the principal examples within what may fairly be called the Necropolis of Memphis. Sixty or seventy of these have been discovered and explored, all which appear to be royal sepulchres. This alone, if true would suffice to justify us in assigning a duration of 1000 years at least to the dynasties of the pyramid builders, and this is about the date we acquire from other sources.

The three great pyramids of Gizeh are the most remarkable and the best known of all those of Egypt. Of these the first, erected by Cheops, or, as he is now more correctly named, Khufu, is the largest; but the next, by Chephren (Khafra), his successor, is scarcely inferior in dimensions; the third, that of Mycerinus (Menkaura), is very much smaller, but excelled the two others in this, that it had a coating of beautiful red granite from Syene, while the other two were revêted only with the beautiful limestone of the country. Part of this coating still remains near the top of the second; and Colonel Vyse^[29] was fortunate enough to discover some of the coping-stones of the Great Pyramid buried in the rubbish at its base. These are sufficient to indicate the nature and extent of the whole, and to show that it was commenced from the bottom and carried upwards; not at the top, as it has sometimes been thoughtlessly asserted.^[30]

No. 7. Section of Great Pyramid.

Since Colonel Vyse’s discovery, however, further casing-stones have 98been found in situ by Mr. Flinders Petrie, whose measurements, taken in 1880-82, and published in the following year,^[31] are the most accurate yet made. The dimensions hitherto given have shown a difference of as much as eighteen inches in the length of the sides, which, if the pyramid had been set out on a perfectly clear level ground, would have detracted from the perfection which has been claimed for its setting out. This difference, however, it appears now, was due to the fact that the various observers had measured from angle to angle of the corner sockets, and had “assumed that the faces of the stones placed in them rose up vertically from the edge of the bottom until they reached the pavement (whatever level that might be), from which the sloping face started upwards.” This, however, was not the case; the sloping sides of the Pyramid continued down to the rock surface, and the base was eventually partially covered over by a level pavement or platform;^[32] the parts covered over varying in extent according to the depth they were carried down. Mr. Petrie utilized the angle sockets for the purpose of obtaining the true diagonals of the casing, and having computed a square which passed through the points of casing found on each side, and having also its corners lying on the diagonals of the sockets, obtained the dimensions of the original base of the Great 99Pyramid casing on the artificial platform or pavement, which was as follows:—

The mean being 755 ft. 8·8 in., and the extreme difference being 1·7 of an inch only.

The actual height of the Great Pyramid from level of platform was 481 ft. 4 in., and the angle of casing 51° 52ʺ.

In the Second Pyramid, the bottom corner of casing (which was in granite) had a vertical base 10 or 12 in. high, against which the pavement was laid; and the following were the dimensions obtained:—

The mean being 706 ft. 2·9 in., and the extreme difference in the length of side 5 in.

The height was 472 ft., and the angle of casing 53° 10ʹ.

The Third Pyramid was never quite finished, and there is some difficulty in determining the exact level of platform. The mean length of the sides was calculated by Mr. Petrie as 346 ft. 1·6 in., its height 215 ft., and the angle of its casing 51° 10ʹ.

From this it will be seen that the area of the Great Pyramid (more than 13 acres) is more than twice the extent of that of St. Peter’s at Rome, or of any other building in the world.^[33] Its height is equal to the highest spire of any cathedral in Europe; for, though it has been attempted to erect higher buildings, in no instance has this yet been successfully achieved. Even the Third Pyramid covers more ground than any Gothic cathedral, and the mass of materials it contains far surpasses that of any erection we possess in Europe.

All the pyramids (with one exception) face exactly north, and have their entrance on that side—a circumstance the more remarkable, as the later builders of Thebes appear to have had no notion of orientation, but to have placed their buildings and tombs so as to avoid regularity, and facing in every conceivable direction. Instead of the entrances to the pyramids being level, they all slope downwards—generally at angles of about 26° to the horizon—a circumstance which has led to an infinity of speculation, as to whether they were not observatories, and meant for the observation of the pole-star, &c.^[34] All these theories, however, have failed, for a variety of reasons it is needless now to 100discuss; but among others it may be mentioned that the angles are not the same in any two pyramids, though erected within a few years of one another, and in the twenty which were measured by Colonel Vyse they vary from 22° 35ʹ to 34° 5ʹ. The angle of the inclination of the side of the pyramid to the horizon is more constant, varying only from 51° 10ʹ to 52° 32ʹ, and in the Gizeh pyramid it would appear that the angle of the passage was intended to have been about one-half of this.

Mr. Petrie gives a synopsis of the various theories connected with the Great Pyramid, which applies not only to the outside form but to the several chambers and passages in the interior. “There are three great lines of theory,” he says,^[35] “throughout the Pyramid, each of which must stand or fall as a whole, they are scarcely contradictory, and may almost subsist together;” these are (1) the Egyptian cubit (20·62 in.) theory; (2) the π proportion or radius and circumference theory; (3) the theory of areas, squares of lengths and diagonals.

Of the two first, and applying these only to the exterior by the cubit theory, the outside form of pyramid is 280 cubits high and 440 cubits length of side, or 7 in height to 11 of width. This is confirmed by the π theory, where we get the very common proportion that the height is to the circumference as the radius is to the circumference of a circle inscribed within its base; thus taking the mean height of 481 ft. 4 in., we have 481·33 × 2 × 3·1416 = 3024, whilst the side 755·75 × 4 = 3023, so near a coincidence that it can hardly be accidental, and if it was intended, all the other external proportions follow as a matter of course.

Even if this theory should not be accepted as the true one, it has at least the merit of being nearer the truth than any other yet proposed. I confess it appears to me so likely that I would hardly care to go further, especially as all the astronomical theories have signally failed, and it seems as if it were only to some numerical fancy that we must look for a solution of the puzzle.

Be this as it may, the small residuum we get from all these pyramid discussions is, that they were built by the kings of the early dynasties of the old kingdom of Egypt as their tombs. The leading idea that governed their forms was that of durability—a quasi-eternity of duration is what they aimed at. The entrances were meant to be concealed, and the angle of the passages was the limit of rest at which heavy bodies could be moved while obtaining the necessary strength where they opened at the outside, and the necessary difficulty for protection inside, without trenching on impossibility. By concealment of the entrance, the difficulties of the passages, and the complicated but most ingenious arrangement of portcullises, these 101ancient kings hoped to be allowed to rest in undisturbed security for at least 3000 years. Perhaps they were successful, though their tombs have since been so shamefully profaned.

To the principal dimensions of the Great Pyramid given above, it may be added that the entrance is 55 ft. 8 in. above the base, on the 19th course, which is deeper than the 11 to 14 courses above and below; at present there remain 203 courses, to which must be added 12 to 14 missing. Their average height is nearly 2 ft. 6 in., but they diminish in height—generally speaking, but not uniformly—towards the top. The summit now consists of a platform 32 ft. 8 in. square; so that about 27 ft. is wanting, the present actual height being 454 ft. It contains two chambers above-ground, and one cut in the rock at a considerable depth below the foundations.

The passages and chambers are worthy of the mass; all are lined with polished granite; and the ingenuity and pains that have been taken to render them solid and secure, and to prevent their being crushed by the superincumbent mass, raise our idea of Egyptian science higher than even the bulk of the building itself could do.

Fig 2.

No. 8. Section of King’s Chamber and of Passage in Great Pyramid. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Towards the exterior, where the pressure is not great, the roof is flat, though it is probable that even there the weight is throughout discharged by 2 stones, sloping up at a certain angle to where they meet, as at the entrance. Towards the centre of the pyramid, however, the passage becomes 28 feet high, the 7 upper courses of stone overhanging one another as shown in the annexed section (fig. 1), so as to reduce the bearing of the covering stone. Nowhere, however, is this ingenuity more shown than in the royal chamber, which measures 17 ft. 1 in. by 34 ft. 3 in., and 19 ft. in height. The walls are lined and the roof is formed of splendid slabs of Syenite, but above the roof 4 successive chambers, as shown in the annexed section (fig. 2), have been formed, each divided from the other by slabs of granite, polished on their lower surfaces, but left rough on the upper, and above these 102a 5th chamber is formed of 2 sloping blocks to discharge the weight of the whole. The first of these chambers has long been known; the upper four were discovered and first entered by Colonel Vyse, and it was in one of these that he discovered the name of the founder. This was not engraved as a record, but scribbled in red paint on the stones, apparently as a quarrymark, or as an address to the king, and accompanied by something like directions for their position in the building. The interest that attaches to these inscriptions consists in the certainty of their being contemporary records, in their proving that Khufu was the founder of the Great Pyramid, and consequently fixing its relative date beyond all possibility of cavil. This is the only really virgin discovery in the pyramids, as they have all been opened either in the time of the Greeks or Romans, or by the Mahometans, and an unrifled tomb of this age is still a desideratum. Until such is hit upon we must remain in ignorance of the real mode of sepulture in those days, and of the purpose of many of the arrangements in these mysterious buildings.

The portcullises which invariably close the entrances of the sepulchral chamber in the pyramids are among the most curious and ingenious of the arrangements of these buildings. Generally they consist of great cubical masses of granite, measuring 8 or 10 ft. each way, and consequently weighing 50 or 60 tons, and even more. These were fitted into chambers prepared during the construction of the building, but raised into the upper parts, and, being lowered after the body was deposited, closed the entrance so effectually that in some instances it has been found necessary either to break them in pieces, or to cut a passage round them, to gain admission to the chambers. They generally slide in grooves in the wall, to which they fit exactly, and altogether show a degree of ingenuity and forethought very remarkable, considering the early age at which they were executed.

In the Second Pyramid one chamber has been discovered partly above-ground, partly cut in the rock. In the Third the chambers are numerous, all excavated in the rock; and from the tunnels that have been driven by explorers through the superstructures of these two, it is very doubtful whether anything is to be found above-ground.^[36]

All the old pyramids do not follow the simple outline of those at Gizeh. That at Dahshur, for instance, rises to half the height, with a slope of 54° to the horizon, but is finished at the angle of 45°, giving it a very exceptional appearance. The pyramids of Sakkara and Medum are of the class known as mastaba pyramids, the term mastaba (Arabic for bench) being given to the sloping-sided tombs of about 76° angle and from 10 to 20 ft. high.

No. 10. Pyramid of Sakkara. (From Colonel Vyse’s work.) Scale 100 ft to 1 in.

104The annexed plan and section of Sakkara (Woodcut Nos. 9 and 10), both to the scale of 100 ft. to 1 in., show the peculiar nature of their construction, which seems to have been cumulative; that is to say, they have been enlarged in successive periods, the original casing of the earlier portions having been traced. Mr. Petrie says: “Both of these structures have been several times finished, each time with a close-jointed polished casing of the finest white limestone, and then, after each completion, it has been again enlarged by another coat of rough masonry and another line casing outside.”

These two pyramids are the only two genuine stepped pyramids, all the others having had an uniform casing on one slope (excepting Dahshur, as above mentioned). The Pyramid of Sakkara is the only pyramid that does not face exactly north and south. It is nearly of the same general dimensions as the Third Pyramid, that of Mycerinus; but its outline, the disposition of its chambers, and the hieroglyphics found in its interior, all would seem to point it out as an imitation of the older form of mausolea by some king of a far more modern date.

Mr. Flinders Petrie’s discoveries in 1891 determined the age and the construction of the Pyramid of Medum,^[37] erected by Seneferu, a king of the third dynasty, being therefore the oldest pyramid known. Its construction resembles that of the small pyramid of Rikheh and the oblong step pyramid of Sakkara, that is to say, it is a cumulative mastaba, the primal mastaba being about 150 ft. square, and from 37 to 45 ft. high. The outer coatings added were seven in number, and the original mass was carried up and heightened as the circuit was increased, and lastly an outer casing covered over all the steps which had resulted during the construction. The average length of the base was 473 ft. 6 in., the total height being 301 ft. 7 in. According to Mr. Petrie, the Pyramid of Medum, as those of Sakkara and Rikheh, were of a transitional form, in which the original mastaba had been greatly enlarged and subsequently covered over with a casing of pyramidal outline. “That type once arrived at, there was no need for subsequent kings to retain the mastaba form internally, and Khufu and his successors laid out their pyramids of full size at first and built them up at an angle of 51°, and not at 75°, that which is found in the ordinary mastabas.” Mr. Petrie also discovered the temple of the pyramid in the middle of its east side, and almost uninjured. It consisted of a passage entered at the south end of east front, then a small chamber and a courtyard adjoining the side of the pyramid, containing two steles and one altar between them.

105In the sepulchral pit of Rahotep, near the pyramid, Mr. Petrie found two arches thrown across a passage to relieve the thrust of the overlapping sides, which carries the use of that feature back to the 4th dynasty.

Around the Pyramids from Abouraash, north of Gizeh to Medum, south of Sakkara, a distance of over 15 miles, forming the Necropolis of Memphis, numberless smaller sepulchres are found, which appear to have been appropriated to private individuals, as the pyramids were—so far as we can ascertain—reserved for kings, or, at all events, for persons of royal blood. These tombs are now known under the term of mastabas, to which we have already referred. The mastaba is a rectangular building varying in size from 15 to 150 ft. in width and length, and from 10 to 80 ft. in height. Their general form is that of a truncated pyramid with an angle of 75° to the horizon, low, and looking exceedingly like a house with sloping walls, with only one door leading to the interior, though they may contain several apartments, and no attempt is made to conceal the entrance. The chambers consist (1) of reception rooms and (2) of serdabs, which are closed cells containing the terra-cotta statuettes which represent the Ka’s or doubles of the deceased. These chambers occupy a part only of the mastaba, the remainder being solid masonry or brickwork. The body seems to have been hidden from profanation by being hid in a pit sunk in the rock, the entrance to which was concealed, and could be approached only through the solid core of the mastaba.

Unlike the pyramids, the walls are covered with the paintings above alluded to, and everything in this “eternal dwelling”^[38] of the dead is made to resemble the abodes of the living; as was afterwards the case with the Etruscans. It is owing to this circumstance that we are able not only to realise so perfectly the civil life of the Egyptians at this period, but to fix the dates of the whole series by identifying the names of the kings who built the pyramids with those on the walls of the tombs that surround them.^[39]

Like all early architecture, that of these tombs shows evident 106symptoms of having been borrowed from a wooden original. The lintels of the doorways are generally rounded, and the walls mere square posts, grooved and jointed together, every part of it being as unlike a stone architecture as can possibly be conceived. Yet the pyramids themselves, and those tombs which are found outside them, are generally far removed from the forms employed in timber structures; and it is only when we find the Egyptians indulging in decorative art that we trace this more primitive style. There are two doorways of this class in the British Museum and many in that of Berlin. One engraved in Lepsius’s work (Woodcut No. 11) gives a fair idea of this style of decorative art, in the most elaborate form in which we now know it. It is possible that some of its forms may have been derived from brick architecture, but the lintel certainly was of wood, and so it may be suspected were the majority of its features. It certainly is a transitional form, and though we only find it in stone, none of its peculiarities were derived from lithic arts. Perhaps one of the best illustrations of the architectural forms of that day was the sarcophagus of Mycerinus, unfortunately lost on its way to England. It represented a palace, with all the peculiarities found on a larger scale in the buildings which surround the pyramid, and with that peculiar cornice and still more singular roll or ligature on the angles, most evidently a carpentry form, but which the style retained to its latest day.

11. Doorway in Tomb at the Pyramids. (From Lepsius.)

12. Sarcophagus of Mycerinus, found in Third Pyramid.

In many of these tombs square piers are found supporting the roofs 107sometimes, but rarely, with an abacus, and generally without any carved work, though it is more than probable they were originally painted with some device, upon which they depended for their ornament. In most instances they look more like fragments of a wall, of which the intervening spaces had been cut away, than pillars in the sense in which we usually understand the word; and in every case in the early ages they must be looked upon more as utilitarian expedients than as parts of an ornamental style of architecture.

Till recently no temples had been discovered which could with certainty be ascribed to the age of the pyramid builders; one, however, was excavated in 1853, from the sand close beside the great Sphinx, with which it was thought at one time to have been connected. Mr. Petrie, however, found the remains of a causeway 15 ft. wide and over a quarter of a mile long, leading to a second temple in front of the pyramid of Khafra; as also the traces of other temples in front of the Great Pyramid and of that of Menkaura. Further temples have been discovered at Abouseer, Dahshur and other pyramids, so that, as Mr. Petrie says, p. 209, “to understand the purpose of the erection of the Pyramids it should be observed that each has a temple on the eastern side of it. Of the temples of the second and third Pyramids the ruins still remain; and of the temple of the Great Pyramid the basalt pavement and numerous blocks of granite show its site.” “The worship of the deified king was carried on in the temple, looking toward the Pyramid which stood on the west of it; just as private individuals worshipped their ancestors in the family tombs” (already referred to) “looking towards the false doors^[40] which are placed in the west side of the tomb, and which represent the entrances to the hidden sepulchres.”

13. Plan of Temple near the Sphinx.

The temple of the Sphinx,^[41] (or, as it is now called, the granite temple,) though at present almost buried, was apparently a free-standing building, a mass of masonry, the outer surfaces of which were built in limestone, and carved with long grooves, horizontal and vertical, skilfully crossed, resembling therefore the carved fronts of many tombs 108at Sakkara and Gizeh and the sarcophagus of Mycerinus (Woodcut No. 12). The temple measured 140 ft. in each direction, and the walls were 40 ft. high. It was arranged in two storeys, the upper one being an open court. In the lower storey were: A, a hall 55 ft. long by 33 ft. wide and 18 ft. 6 in. high, with two rows of massive granite piers supporting beams of the same material to carry the stone roof: B, a second hall into which the first hall opened, and at right angles to it, measuring 81 ft. long by 22 ft. wide and 19 ft. high, with one row of granite piers down the centre; both of these being lighted by narrow slits just below the granite roof:^[42] C, a side chamber with six loculi, in two levels, each 19 ft. long: D, a sloping passage lined with granite and oriental alabaster, leading to the causeway which placed it in communication with the Second Pyramid, and: E, a hall 60 ft. long by 12 ft. wide and 30 ft. high (rising therefore above the pavement of the upper court), with a large recess at each end containing a statue. These recesses were high above doors which led to smaller chambers also containing statues.

The internal walls were lined with immense blocks of granite from Syene and of alabaster beautifully polished, but with sloping joints and uneven beds, a form of masonry not unknown in that age. No sculpture or inscription of any sort is found on the walls of the temple,^[43] or ornament or symbol in the sanctuary. Statues and tablets of Khafra, the builder of the Second Pyramid, were found in the well, and this, and the fact that the causeway extended to the temple in front of his pyramid, shows clearly that it belonged to his time.^[44]

In the present transitional state of our knowledge of the architectural art of the pyramid builders, it is difficult to form any distinct judgment as to its merits. The early Egyptians built neither for beauty nor for use, but for eternity, and to this last they sacrificed every other feeling. In itself nothing can be less artistic than a pyramid. A tower, either round or square, or of any other form, and of the same dimensions, would have been far more imposing, and if of sufficient height—the mass being the same—might almost have attained sublimity; but a pyramid never looks so large as it is, and not till you almost touch it can you realise its vast dimensions. This is owing principally to all its parts sloping away from the eye instead of boldly challenging observation; but, on the other hand, no form is so stable, none so capable of resisting the injuries of time or force, and 109none, consequently, so well calculated to attain the object for which the pyramids were erected. As examples of technic art, they are unrivalled among the works of men, but they rank low if judged by the æsthetic rules of architectural art.

The same may be said of the tombs around them: they are low and solid, but possess neither beauty of form nor any architectural feature worthy of attention or admiration, but they have lasted nearly uninjured from the remotest antiquity, and thus have attained the object their builders had principally in view in designing them.

Their temple architecture, on the other hand, may induce us to modify considerably these opinions. The one described above—which is the only one I personally have any knowledge of—is perhaps the simplest and least adorned temple in the world. All its parts are plain—straight and square, without a single moulding of any sort, but they are perfectly proportioned to the work they have to do. They are pleasingly and effectively arranged, and they have all that lithic grandeur which is inherent in large masses of precious materials.

Such a temple as that near the Sphinx cannot compete either in richness or magnificence with the great temples of Thebes, with their sculptured capitals and storied walls, but there is a beauty of repose and an elegance of simplicity about the older example which goes far to redeem its other deficiencies, and when we have more examples before us they may rise still higher in our estimation.

Whatever opinion we may ultimately form regarding their architecture, there can be little doubt as to the rank to be assigned to their painting and sculpture. In these two arts the Egyptians early attained a mastery which they never surpassed. Judged by the rules of classic or of modern art, it appears formal and conventional to such an extent as to render it difficult for us now to appreciate its merits. But as a purely Phonetic form of art—as used merely to enunciate those ideas which we now so much more easily express by alphabetic writings—it is clear and precise beyond any picture-writings the world has since seen. Judged by its own rules, it is marvellous to what perfection the Egyptians had attained at that early period, and if we look on their minor edifices as mere vehicles for the display of this pictorial expression, we must modify to some extent the judgment we would pass on them as mere objects of architectural art.

CHAPTER III. FIRST THEBAN KINGDOM. — The Labyrinth. — Pyramids. — An Egyptian Town. — Tombs. — SHEPHERDS.

The great culminating period of the old kingdom of Egypt is that belonging to the 4th and 5th dynasties. Nine-tenths of the monuments of the pyramid-builders which have come down to our time belong to the five centuries during which these two dynasties ruled over Egypt (B.C. 3500-3000).

The 6th dynasty was of a southern and more purely African origin. On the tablets of Apap^[45] (Apophis), its most famous monarch, we find the worship of Khem and other deities of the Theban period wholly unknown to the pyramid kings. The next four dynasties are of fainéant kings, of whom we know little, not “Carent quia vate sacro,” but because they were not builders, and their memory is lost. The 11th and 12th usher in a new state of affairs. The old Memphite pyramid-building kingdom had passed, with its peaceful contentment, and had given place to a warlike idolatrous race of Theban kings, far more purely African, the prototypes of the great monarchy of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and having no affinity with anything we know of as existing in Asia in those times.

Their empire lasted apparently for more than 300 years in Upper Egypt; but for the latter portion of that period they do not seem to have reigned over the whole country, having been superseded in Lower Egypt by the invasion of the hated Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, about the year 2300 B.C., and by whom they also were finally totally overthrown.

When we turn from the contemplation of the pyramids, and the monuments contemporary with them, to examine those of the 12th dynasty, we become at once aware of the change which has taken place. Instead of the pyramids, all of which are situated on the 111western side of the Nile, we have obelisks, which, without a single exception, are found on its eastern side towards the rising sun, apparently in contradistinction to the valley of the dead, which was towards the side on which he set. The earliest and one of the finest of these obelisks is that still standing at Heliopolis, inscribed with the name of Osirtasen, one of the first and greatest kings of this dynasty. It is 67 ft. 4 in. in height, without the pyramidion which crowns it, and is a splendid block of granite, weighing 217 tons. It must have required immense skill to quarry it, to transport it from Syene, and finally, after finishing it, to erect it where it now stands and has stood for 4500 years.

We find the sculptures of the same king at Wady Halfah, near the second cataract, in Nubia; and at Sarabout el Kadem, in the Sinaitic Peninsula. He also commenced the great temple of Karnac at Thebes, which in the hands of his successors became the most splendid in Egypt, and perhaps it is not too much to say the greatest architectural monument in the whole world.

As might be expected, from our knowledge of the fact that the Hyksos invasion took place so soon after his reign, none of his structural buildings now remain entire in which we might read the story of his conquests, and learn to which gods of the Pantheon he especially devoted himself. We must therefore fall back on Manetho for an account of his “conquering all Asia in the space of nine years, and Europe as far as Thrace.”^[46] While there is nothing to contradict this statement, there is much that renders it extremely probable.

It is to this dynasty also that we owe the erection of the Labyrinth, one of the most remarkable, as well as one of the most mysterious monuments of Egypt. All Manetho tells us of this is, that Lampares, or Mœris, “built it as a sepulchre for himself;” and the information we derive from the Greeks on this subject is so contradictory and so full of the wonderful, that it is extremely difficult to make out either the plan or the purpose of the building. As long ago as 1843, the whole site was excavated and thoroughly explored by the officers of the Prussian expedition under Lepsius; but, like most of the information obtained by that ill-conditioned party, such data as have been given are of the most unsatisfactory and fragmentary form. The position which Lepsius claimed for the Labyrinth has been found by Mr. Petrie^[47] to be incorrect; the remains supposed to be those of the walls and 112chambers are of much later date, being only the houses and tombs of the population which destroyed the great structure. The village thus created was established on the outer portion of the site when the destruction of the buildings was first commenced. Mr. Petrie calculates that the Labyrinth was symmetrical with the pyramid, and had the same axis: that it occupied a site of about 1000 feet wide by 800 ft. deep; thus covering an area sufficiently large to accommodate all the Theban temples on the east bank, and in addition one of the largest on the west bank. The essential difference between the Labyrinth and all other temples was that it consisted of a series of eighteen large peristylar courts with sanctuaries and other chambers. Of these, according to Herodotus, there were six, side by side, facing north; six others, opposite, facing south, and a wall surrounding the whole. Herodotus, however, was allowed to see portions only of the Labyrinth, probably those nearest to the entrance. Beyond this, on the north side, Mr. Petrie suggests the existence of a third series of peristylar courts (described by Strabo), with sanctuaries and other chambers, and south of these, halls of columns, and smaller halls, through which Strabo entered. In the hall of twenty-seven columns, mentioned by Strabo, Mr. Petrie places the columns in one row to form a vestibule to the entrances to the courts similar to the temple of Abydos. The whole disposition of the plan, the style of the courts and their peristyles must be conjectural, as no remains of blocks of stone or columns in sufficient preservation have been found on which to base a restoration. On some architrave blocks were found inscriptions of Amenemhat III. and Sebekneferu. The last remains were taken away within our own time by the engineers of the new railway, and apparently with the consent of the officials of the Boulak Museum, who reported that they had been quarried from the native rock.

The Hawara Pyramid, on the north of the Labyrinth, and erected by the same King Amenemhat III., has been examined by Mr. Petrie and described by him.^[48] As the rock on which it was built was little more than hardened sand, a pit was excavated, into which a monolithic chamber of granite, brought from Upper Egypt, and weighing 100 tons, was lowered. The sarcophagus and two other coffins having been placed in it, the chamber was covered over with three granite beams, 4 feet thick, one of which was raised in a hollow chamber, and supported there till after the King’s death and the deposit of his body in the sarcophagus. Round the granite monolith were built walls 113which carried two courses of stone blocks, the lower horizontal, the upper courses sloping one against the other, as in the Great Pyramid. The rest of the pyramid was constructed in brick, and to prevent the brickwork settling down and splitting on the pointed roof-stones, an arch of five courses of brick, measuring 3 feet deep, was thrown across, resting on bricks laid in mud between the arch and the stonework. The brickwork above the arch was laid in sand, and the whole pyramid covered with a casing of limestone. The size of the pyramid Mr. Petrie calculates to have been about 334 ft. wide and 191 ft. high.

A second pyramid belonging to this dynasty, and erected by Osirtasen II., has also been examined and described by Mr. Petrie.^[49] This pyramid (Illahun) is of peculiar construction, being partly composed of the natural rock dressed into form to a height of 40 feet, above which rose the built portion, which was different from that of any other pyramid, being built with a framing of cross walls. The walls ran right through the diagonals up to the top of the building, and had offset walls at right angles to the sides, the walls being of stone in the lower part, and brick above; the filling-in between the walls was of mud and brick, and the whole pyramid, brick, stone, and rock, was covered with a casing of limestone.

14. Plans of Houses, Kahun.

The most remarkable discovery made by Mr. Petrie in the Fayum^[50] was the finding of the plan, more or less complete, of the town or 114village of Kahun, which was built for the workmen and overseers of the Illahun pyramid, and deserted shortly after its completion. The plan would seem to have been laid out from one design, and consisted: of an acropolis or raised space, where the house of the chief controller of the works was placed, and which might have been occupied by the King when he came to inspect the works: a series of large houses (Woodcut No. 14), arranged very much in the same way as those of Pompeii, and containing a great number of halls, courts, and rooms; and many streets of workmen’s dwellings of two or three rooms each. The walls were all built in crude brick, the rooms being covered over with roofs formed of beams of wood, on which poles were placed, and to these bundles of straw and reeds lashed down, the whole being covered inside and outside with mud. In those rooms, which exceeded 8 or 9 ft. in width, columns of stone or wood were employed to assist in carrying the roof; such columns being octagonal or with sixteen sides, fluted or ribbed like the reed or lotus column at Beni-Hasan. The lower portion of a fluted column in wood was found, existing still in situ on its base, which shows that description of column to have had a wooden origin.

The most interesting series of monuments of this dynasty which have come down to our time are the tombs of Beni-Hasan, in Middle Egypt. They are situated on the eastern side of the Nile, as are also those of Tel-el-Amarna, Sheykh-Said, Kôm-el-ahman, and others. The character of the sculptures which adorn their walls approaches that found in the tombs surrounding the pyramids, but the architecture differs widely. They are all cheerful-looking halls, open to the light of day, many of them with pillared porches, and all possessing pretensions to architectural ornament, either internal or external.

15. Tomb at Beni-Hasan.

One of the most interesting of the tombs has in front of it a portico-in-antis of two columns, in architecture so like the order afterwards 115employed by the Greeks, as to have been frequently described as the Proto-Doric order.^[51] The same class of column is also used internally, supporting a plain architrave beam, from which spring curvilinear roofs of segmented form, which there is no doubt are imitations of constructive arch forms.

16. Proto-Doric Pillar at Beni-Hasan.

17. Reed Pillar from Beni-Hasan.

18. Lotus pier, Zawyet-el-Mayyitûr. (From Lepsius.)

There is another form of pillar used at Beni-Hasan at that early age^[52] which is still further removed from stone than even the Proto-Doric. It imitates a bundle of four reeds or lotus-stalks bound together near the top, and bulging above the ligature so as to form a capital. Such a pier must evidently have been originally employed in wooden architecture only, and the roof which it supports is in this instance of light wooden construction, having the slight slope requisite in the dry climate of Egypt. In after ages this form of pillar became a great favourite with the 116Egyptian architects, and was employed in all their great monuments, but with a far more substantial lithic form than we find here, and in conjunction with the hollow—or, as we should call it, Corinthian—formed capital, of which no example is found earlier than the 18th dynasty.

These are meagre records, it must be confessed, of so great a kingdom; but when we come to consider the remoteness of the period, and that the dynasty was overthrown by the Shepherds, whose rule was of considerable duration, it is perhaps in vain to expect that much can remain to be disinterred which would enable us to realise more fully the architectural art of this age.

Till very recently our knowledge of the Shepherd kings was almost entirely derived from what was said of them by Manetho, in the extracts from his writings so fortunately preserved by Josephus, in his answer to Apion. Recent explorations have however raised a hope that even their monuments may be so far recovered as to enable us to realise to some extent at least who they were and what their aspirations.

Manetho tells us they came from the East, but fearing the then rising power of the Assyrians, they fortified Avaris as a bulwark against them, and used it during their sojourn in Egypt to keep up their communications with their original seat. Recent explorations have enabled M. Mariette to identify San, Zoan, or Tanis, a well-known site on the Bubastite branch of the Nile, with this Avaris. And already he has disinterred a sphinx and two seated statues which certainly belong to the reign of the Shepherd king Apophis.^[53]

The character of these differs widely from anything hitherto found in Egypt. They present a physiognomy strongly marked with an Asiatic type—an arched nose, rude bushy hair, and great muscular development; altogether something wholly different from everything else found in Egypt either before or afterwards.

This is not much, but it is an earnest that more remains to be discovered, and adds another to the proofs that are daily accumulating, how implicitly Manetho may be relied upon when we only read him correctly, and how satisfactory it is to find that every discovery that is made confirms the conclusions we had hesitatingly been adopting.

117It appears from such fragmentary evidence as has hitherto been gleaned from the monuments, that the Shepherds’ invasion was neither sudden nor at once completely successful, if indeed it ever was so, for it is certain that Theban and Xoite dynasties co-existed with the Shepherds during the whole period of their stay, either from policy, like the protected princes under our sway in India, or because their conquest was not so complete as to enable them to suppress the national dynasties altogether.

Like the Tartars in China they seem to have governed the country by means of the original inhabitants, but for their own purposes; tolerating their religion and institutions, but ruling by the superior energy of their race the peace-loving semi-Semitic inhabitants of the Delta, till they were in their turn overthrown and expelled by the more warlike but more purely African races of the southern division of the Egyptian valley.

CHAPTER IV. PHARAONIC KINGDOM. — THEBES. — Rock-cut Tombs and Temples. — Mammeisi. — Tombs. — Obelisks. — Domestic Architecture.

The five centuries^[54] which elapsed between the expulsion of the Shepherds and Exode of the Jews comprise the culminating period of the greatness and greatest artistic development of the Egyptians. It is practically within this period that all the great buildings of the “Hundred pyloned city of Thebes” were erected. Memphis was adorned within its limits with buildings as magnificent as those of the southern capital, though subsequently less fortunate in escaping the hand of the spoiler; and in every city of the Delta wherever an obelisk or sculptured stone is found, there we find almost invariably the name of one of the kings of the 18th or 19th dynasties. In Arabia, too, and above the cataracts of the far-off Meroë, everywhere their works and names are found. At Arban,^[55] on the Khabour, we find the name of the third Thothmes; and there seems little doubt but that the Naharaina or Mesopotamia was one of the provinces conquered by them, and that all Western Asia was more or less subject to their sway.

Whoever the conquering Thebans may have been, their buildings are sufficient to prove, as above mentioned, that they belonged to a race differing in many essential respects from that of the Memphite kingdom they had superseded.

The pyramid has disappeared as a form of royal sepulchre, to be replaced by a long gloomy corridor cut in the rock; its walls covered with wild and fetish pictures of death and judgment: a sort of magic hall, crowded with mysterious symbols the most monstrous and complicated that any system of human superstition has yet invented.

119Instead of the precise orientation and careful masonry of the old kingdom, the buildings of the new race are placed anywhere, facing in any direction, and generally affected with a symmetriphobia that it is difficult to understand. The pylons are seldom in the axis of the temples; the courts seldom square; the angles frequently not right angles, and one court succeeding another without the least reference to symmetry.

The masonry, too, is frequently of the rudest and clumsiest sort, and would long ago have perished but for its massiveness: and there is in all their works an appearance of haste and want of care that sometimes goes far to mar the value of their grandest conceptions.

In their manners, too, there seems an almost equal degree of discrepancy. War was the occupation of the kings, and foreign conquest seems to have been the passion of the people. The pylons and the walls of the temples are covered with battle-scenes, or with the enumeration of the conquests made, or the tribute brought by the subjected races. While not engaged in this, the monarch’s time seems to have been devoted to practising the rites of the most complicated and least rational form of idolatry that has yet been known to exist among any body of men in the slightest degree civilised.

If the monuments of Memphis had come down to our times as perfect as those of Thebes, some of these differences might be found less striking. On the other hand, others might be still more apparent; but judging from such data as we possess—and they are tolerably extensive and complete—we are justified in assuming a most marked distinction; and it is indispensably necessary to bear it in mind in attempting to understand the architecture of the valley of the Nile, and equally important in any attempt to trace the affinities of the Egyptian with any other races of mankind. So far as we can now see, it may be possible to trace some affinities with the pyramid builders in Assyria or in Western Asia; but if any can be dimly predicated of the southern Egyptian race, it is in India and the farther east; and the line of communication was not the Isthmus of Suez, but the Straits of Babelmandeb and the Indian Ocean.

Although, as already mentioned, numerous buildings of the great Pharaonic dynasties are to be found scattered all along the banks of the Nile, it is at Thebes only that the temples are so complete as to enable us to study them with advantage, or to arrive at a just appreciation of their greatness. That city was practically the capital of Egypt during the whole of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and has been fortunate in having had no great city built near it since it fell into 120decay; unlike Memphis in this respect, which has been used as a quarry during the last 14 or 15 centuries. It has also had the advantage of a barrier of rocky hills on its western limits, which has prevented the sand of the desert from burying its remains, as has been the case at Abydus and elsewhere.

The ruins that still remain are found scattered over an area extending about 21⁄4 miles north and south, and 31⁄2 miles east and west. The principal group is at Karnac, on the eastern bank of the Nile, consisting of one great temple 1200 feet long, and five or six smaller temples grouped unsymmetrically around it. About two miles farther south is the temple at Luxor 820 feet long, and without any dependencies.

19. Rameseum at Thebes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

On the other side of the river is the great temple of Medeenet-Habû, built by the first king of the 19th dynasty, 520 feet in length; the Rameseum, 570 feet long, and the temple at Koorneh, of which only the sanctuary and the foundations of the Propyla now exist. Of the great temple of Thothmes and Amenophis very little remains above ground—it having been situated within the limits of the inundation—except the two celebrated colossi, one of which was known to the Greeks as the vocal Memnon. When complete it probably was, next after Karnac, the most extensive of 121Theban temples. There are several others, situated at the foot of the Libyan hills, which would be considered as magnificent elsewhere, but sink into insignificance when compared with those just enumerated.

20. Central Pillar, from Rameseum, Thebes.

Most of these, like our mediæval cathedrals, are the work of successive kings, who added to the works of their ancestors without much reference to congruity of plan; but one, the Rameseum, was built wholly by the great Rameses in the 15th century B.C., and though the inner sanctuary is so ruined that it can hardly be restored, still the general arrangement, as shown in the annexed woodcut, is so easily made out that it may be considered as a typical example of what an Egyptian temple of this age was intended to have been. Its façade is formed by two great pylons, or pyramidal masses of masonry, which, like the two western towers of a Gothic cathedral, are the appropriate and most imposing part of the structure externally. Between these is the entrance doorway, leading, as is almost invariably the case, into a great square courtyard, with porticoes always on two, and sometimes on three, sides. This leads to an inner court, smaller, but far more splendid than the first. On the two sides of this court, through which the central passage leads, are square piers with colossi in front, and on the right and left are double ranges of circular columns, which are continued also behind the square piers fronting the entrance. Passing through this, we come to a hypostyle hall of great beauty, formed by two ranges of larger columns in the centre, and three rows of smaller ones on each side. These hypostyle halls almost always accompany the larger Egyptian temples of the great age. They derive their name from having, over the lateral columns, what in Gothic architecture would be called a clerestory, through which the light is admitted to the central portion of the hall. Although some are more extensive than this, the arrangement of all is nearly similar. They all possess two ranges of columns in the centre, so tall as to equal the height of the side columns together with that of the attic which 122is placed on them. They are generally of different orders; the central pillars having a bell-shaped capital, the under side of which was perfectly illuminated from the mode in which the light was introduced; while in the side pillars the capital was narrower at the top than at the bottom, apparently for the sake of allowing its ornaments to be seen.

Beyond this are always several smaller apartments, in this instance supposed to be nine in number, but they are so ruined that it is difficult to be quite certain what their arrangement was. These seem to have been rather suited to the residences of the king or priests than to the purposes of a temple, as we understand the word. Indeed, Palace-Temple, or Temple-Palace, would be a more appropriate term for these buildings than to call them simply Temples. They do not seem to have been appropriated to the worship of any particular god, but rather for the great ceremonials of royalty—of kingly sacrifice to the gods for the people, and of worship of the king himself by the people, who seems to have been regarded, if not as a god, at least as the representative of the gods on earth.

Though the Rameseum is so grand from its dimensions, and so beautiful from its design, it is far surpassed in every respect by the palace-temple at Karnac, which is perhaps the noblest effort of architectural magnificence ever produced by the hand of man.

Its principal dimensions are 1200 ft. in length, by about 360 in width, and it covers therefore about 430,000 square ft., or nearly twice the area of St. Peter’s at Rome, and more than four times that of any mediæval cathedral existing. This, however, is not a fair way of estimating its dimensions, for our churches are buildings entirely under one roof; but at Karnac a considerable portion of the area was uncovered by any buildings, so that no comparison is just. The great hypostyle hall, however, is internally 330 ft. by 170, and, with its two pylons, it covers more than 85,000 square feet—nearly as large as Cologne, one of the largest of our northern cathedrals; and when we consider that this is only a part of a great whole, we may fairly assert that the entire structure is among the largest, as it undoubtedly is one of the most beautiful, buildings in the world.

The original part of this great group was, as before mentioned, the sanctuary or temple built by Osirtasen, the great monarch of the 12th dynasty, before the Shepherd invasion. It is the only thing that seems to have been allowed to stand during the five centuries of Shepherd domination, though it is by no means clear that it had not been pulled down by the Shepherds, and reinstated by the first kings of the 18th dynasty, an operation easily performed with the beautiful polished granite masonry of the sanctuary. Be this as it may, Amenhotep, the first king of the restored race, enclosed this in a temple about 120 ft. square. Thothmes I. built in front of it a splendid hall, surrounded 123by colossi, backed by piers; and Thothmes III. erected behind it a palace or temple, which is one of the most singular buildings in Egypt. The hall is 140 ft. long by 55 in width internally, the roof is supported by two rows of massive square columns, and two of circular pillars of most exceptional form, the capitals of which are reversed, and somewhat resembling the form usually found in Assyria, but nowhere else in Egypt. Like almost all Egyptian halls, it was lighted from the roof in the manner shown in the section. With all these additions, the temple was a complete whole, 540 ft. in length by 280 in width, at the time when the Sun-worshippers broke in upon the regular succession of the great 18th dynasty.

21. Section of Palace of Thothmes III., Thebes.

When the original line was resumed, Meneptah commenced the building of the great hall, which he nearly completed. Rameses, the first king of the 19th dynasty, built the small temple in front; and the so-called Bubastite kings of the 22nd dynasty added the great court in front, completing the building to the extent we now find it. We have thus, as in some of our mediæval cathedrals, in this one temple a complete history of the style during the whole of its most flourishing period; and, either for interest or for beauty, it forms such a series as no other country, and no other age, can produce. Besides those buildings mentioned above, there are other temples to the north, to the east, and more especially to the south, and pylons connecting these, and avenues of sphinxes extending for miles, and enclosing-walls, and tanks, and embankments—making up such a group as no city ever possessed before or since. St. Peter’s, with its colonnades, and the Vatican, make up an immense mass, but as insignificant in extent as in style when compared with this glory of ancient Thebes and its surrounding temples.

22. Plan of Hypostyle Hall at Karnac. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

23. Section of central portion of Hypostyle Hall at Karnac. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The culminating point and climax of all this group of building is the hypostyle hall of Meneptah. The plan and section of its central portion on the next page, both to the usual scale, will explain its general arrangement; but no language can convey an idea of its beauty, and no artist has yet been able to reproduce its form so as to convey to 124those who have not seen it an idea of its grandeur. The mass of its central piers, illumined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and the smaller pillars of the wings gradually fading into obscurity, are so arranged and lighted as to convey an idea of infinite space; at the same time, the beauty and massiveness of the forms, and the brilliancy 125of their coloured decorations, all combine to stamp this as the greatest of man’s architectural works; but such a one as it would be impossible to reproduce, except in such a climate and in that individual style in which, and for which, it was created.

24. Caryatide Pillar, from the Great Court at Medeenet-Habû.

On the same side of the Nile, and probably at one time connected with it by an avenue of sphinxes, stands the temple of Luxor, hardly inferior in some respects to its great rival at Karnac; but either it was never finished, or, owing to its proximity to the Nile, it has been ruined, and the materials carried away. The length is about 830 ft., its breadth ranging from 100 to 200 ft. Its general arrangement comprised, first, a great court at a different angle from the rest, being turned so as to face Karnac. In front of this stand two colossi of Rameses the Great, its founder, and two obelisks were once also there, one of which is now in Paris. Behind this was once a great hypostyle hall, but only the two central ranges of columns are now standing. Still further back were smaller halls and numerous apartments, evidently meant for the king’s residence, rather than for a temple or place exclusively devoted to worship.

The palace at Luxor is further remarkable as a striking instance of how regardless the Egyptians were of regularity and symmetry in their plans. Not only is there a considerable angle in the direction of the axis of the building, but the angles of the courtyards are in scarcely any instance right angles; the pillars are variously spaced, and pains seem to have been gratuitously taken to make it as irregular as possible in nearly every respect. All the portion at the southern end was erected by Amenhotep III., the northern part completed by Rameses the Great, the same who built the Rameseum already described as situated on the other bank of the Nile.

126Besides these there stood on the western side of the Nile the Memnonium, or great temple of Amenhotep III., now almost entirely ruined. It was placed on the alluvial plain, within the limits of the inundation, which has tended on the one hand to bury it, and on the other to facilitate the removal of its materials. Nearly the only remains of it now apparent are the two great seated colossi of its founder, one of which, when broken, became in Greek, or rather Roman times, the vocal Memnon, whose plaintive wail to the rising sun, over its own and its country’s desolation, forms so prominent an incident in the Roman accounts of Thebes.^[56]

25. South Temple of Karnac. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

26. Section through Hall of Columns, South Temple of Karnac. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Not far from this stands the great temple known as that of Medeenet-Habû, built by the first king of the 19th dynasty. Its dimensions are only slightly inferior to those of the Rameseum, being 520 ft. from front to rear, and its propylon 107 ft. wide. Its two great courts are, however, inferior in size to those of that building. The inner one is adorned by a series of Caryatide figures (Woodcut No. 24), which are inferior both in conception and execution to those of the previous reigns; and indeed throughout the whole building there is an absence of style, and an exaggeration of detail, which shows only too clearly that the great age was passing away when it was erected. The roof of its hypostyle hall, and of the chambers beyond it, is occupied by an Arab village, which would require to be cleared away before it could be excavated; much as this might be desired, the details of its courts would not lead us to expect anything either very beautiful or new from its disinterment. Further down the river, as already mentioned, stood another temple, that of Koorneh, built by the same Meneptah who erected the great hall of Karnac. It is, however, only a fragment, or what may be called the residential part of a temple. The hypostyle hall never was erected, and only the foundations of two successive pylons can be traced in front 127of it. In its present condition, therefore, it is one of the least interesting of the temples of Thebes, though elsewhere it would no doubt be regarded with wonder.

Another building of this age, attached to the southern side of the great temple of Karnac, deserves especial attention as being a perfectly regular building, erected at one time, and according to the original design, and strictly a temple, without anything about it that could justify the supposition of its being a palace.

It was erected by the first king of the 19th dynasty, and consists of two pylons, approached through an avenue of sphinxes. Within this is an hypæthral court, and beyond that a small hypostyle hall, lighted from above, as shown in the section (Woodcut No. 26). Within this is the cell, surrounded by a passage, and with a smaller hall beyond, all apparently dark, or very imperfectly lighted. The gateway in front of the avenue was erected by the Ptolemys, and, like many Egyptian buildings, is placed at a different angle to the direction of the building itself. Besides its intrinsic beauty, this temple is interesting as being far more like the temples erected afterwards under the Greek and Roman domination than anything else belonging to that early age.

At Tanis, or Zoan, near the mouth of the Nile, the remains of a temple and of 13 obelisks can still be traced. At Soleb, on the borders of Nubia, a temple now stands of the Third Amenhotep, scarcely inferior in beauty or magnificence to those of the capital.

27. Pillar, from Sedinga.

At Sedinga, not far below the third cataract, are the remains of temples erected by Amenhotep III. of the 18th dynasty, which are interesting as introducing in a completed form a class of pillar that afterwards became a great favourite with Egyptian architects (Woodcut No. 27). Before this time we find these Isis heads either painted or carved on the face of square piers, but so as not to interfere with the lines of the pillars. Gradually they became more important, so as to form a double capital, as in this instance. In the Roman times, as at Denderah (Woodcut No. 41, p. 143), all the four faces of the pier were so adorned, though it must be admitted in very questionable taste.

It would be tedious to attempt to enumerate without illustrating 128all the fragments that remain of temples of this age. Some are so ruined that it is difficult to make out their plan. Others, like those of Memphis or Tanis, so entirely destroyed, that only their site, or at most only their leading dimensions, can be made out. Their loss is of course to be regretted; but those enumerated above are sufficient to enable us to judge both of the style and the magnificence of the great building epoch.

28. Smaller Temple at Abydus.

29. Plan of Temple of Abydus.

At Abydus the remains of two great temples have been found; one of Rameses II., with great court surrounded by piers with osireide figures on them; two halls of columns, a sanctuary, and other small chambers in the rear. The other, completed only and decorated with sculpture by Rameses II., the temple having been built by his father, Sethi I. This second temple differs in the arrangement of its plan from other examples (Woodcut No. 29); it was preceded by two great courts; at the further end of the second court was a peristyle with twelve piers, from which, through three doors, a hall of twenty-four columns was reached; the columns here were so arranged as to suggest seven avenues, beyond which were seven doors leading to a second hall with thirty-six columns, similarly disposed to those in the first hall. These avenues led to seven sanctuaries, the roofs of which were segmental, the arched form of vault being cut out of solid blocks of stone (Woodcut No. 29A). Beyond the sepulchral destination, which roofs 129of these sanctuaries suggest, nothing is known from inscriptions as to their precise use. Through one of the sanctuaries other halls of columns and chambers were reached which lie in the rear of the building, and on the south side, and approached from the second great hall of columns, many other halls, chambers, and staircases leading to the roof. The special interest to the Egyptologist, however, of this temple lies in the fact that it was on the walls of one of these that the so-called tablet of Abydus was discovered—now in the British Museum—which first gave a connected list of kings, the predecessors of Rameses, and sufficiently extensive to confirm the lists of Manetho in a manner satisfactory to the ordinary inquirer. A second list, far more complete, has recently been brought to light in the same locality, and contains the names of 76 kings, ancestors of Meneptah, the father of Rameses. It begins, as all lists do, with Menes; but even this list is only a selection, omitting many names found in Manetho, but inserting others which are not in his lists.^[57] Before the discovery of this perfect list, the longest known were that of the chamber of the ancestors of Thothmes III., at Karnac, containing when perfect 61 names, of which, however, nearly one-third are obliterated; and that recently found at Saccara, containing 58 names originally, but of which several are now illegible.

It is the existence of these lists which gives such interest and such reality to the study of Architecture in Egypt. Fortunately there is hardly a building in that country which is not adorned with the name of the king in whose reign it was erected. In royal buildings they are found on every wall and every pillar. The older cartouches are simple and easily remembered; and when we find the buildings thus dated by the builders themselves, and their succession recorded by subsequent kings on the walls of their temples, we feel perfectly certain of our sequence, and nearly so of the actual dates of the buildings; they are, moreover, such a series as no other country in the world can match either for historic interest or Architectural magnificence.

But in Egypt Proper and in Nubia the Egyptians were in the habit of excavating monuments from the living rock, but with this curious distinction, that, with scarcely an exception, all the excavations in Egypt Proper are tombs, and no important example of a rock-cut temple has yet been discovered. In Nubia, on the other 130hand, all the excavations are temples, and no tombs of importance are to be found anywhere. This distinction may hereafter lead to important historical deductions, inasmuch as on the western side of India there are an infinite number of rock-cut temples, but no tombs of any sort. Every circumstance seems to point to the fact that, if there was any connection between Africa and India, it was with the provinces in the upper part of the Valley of the Nile, and not with Egypt Proper. This, however, is a subject that can hardly be entered on here, though it may be useful to bear in mind the analogy alluded to.

30. Plan and Section of Rock-cut Temple at Abû Simbel. Scale for plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; section 50 ft. to 1 in.

Like all rock-cut examples all over the world, these Nubian temples are copies of structural buildings only more or less modified to suit the exigencies of their situation, which did not admit of any very great development inside, as light and air could only be introduced from the one opening of the doorway.

The two principal examples of this class of monument are the two at Abû Simbel, the larger of which is the finest of its class known to exist anywhere. Its total depth from the face of the rock is 150 ft., divided into 2 large halls and 3 cells, with passages connecting them.

Externally the façade is about 100 ft. in height, and adorned by 4 of the most magnificent colossi in Egypt, each 70 ft. in height, and representing the king, Rameses II., who caused the excavation to be made. It may be because they are more perfect than any others now 131found in that country, but certainly nothing can exceed their calm majesty and beauty, or be more entirely free from the vulgarity and exaggeration which is generally a characteristic of colossal works of this sort.

The smaller temple at the same place has six standing figures of deities countersunk in the rock, and is carved with exceeding richness. It is of the same age with the large temple, but will not admit of comparison with it owing to the inferiority of the design.

Besides these, there is a very beautiful though small example at Kalabsheh (known as the Bayt el Wellee, “the house of the saint”), likewise belonging to the age of Rameses II., and remarkable for the beauty of its sculptural bas-reliefs, as well as for the bold Proto-Doric columns which adorn its vestibule. There are also smaller ones at Dêrr and Balagne, at the upper end of the valley. At Wâdy Saboua and Gerf Hussên, the cells of the temple have been excavated from the rock, but their courts and propylons are structural buildings added in front—a combination only found once in Egypt, at Thebes (Dêr-el-Bahree), and very rare anywhere else, although meeting the difficulties of the case better than any other arrangement, inasmuch as the sanctuary has thus all the imperishability and mystery of a cave, and the temple at the same time has the space and external appearance of a building standing in the open air.

This last arrangement is found also as a characteristic of the temples of Gebel Barkal, in the kingdom of Meroë, showing how far the rock-cutting practice prevailed in the Upper Valley of the Nile.

The plan on which the Temple of Dêr-el-Bahree is constructed is curious, and differs entirely from that of any other in Egypt. It is built in stages up a slope at the foot of the mountain, flights of steps leading from one court to the other. The temple was built by Queen Hatshepsu or Amen-noo-het, the sister of Thothmes II. and Thothmes III., and consisted of three courts rising in terraces one above the other; at the back of these were two ranges of porticoes, the upper one set back behind the lower and built into the vertical face of the rock with which the sanctuary and antechambers were cut. As all the temples above mentioned are contemporary with the great structures in Egypt, it seems strange that the eternity of a rock-cut example did not recommend this form of temple to the attention of the Egyptians themselves. But with the exception of Dêr-el-Bahree and a small grotto, called the Speos Artemidos, near Beni-Hasan, and two small caves at Silsilis, near the Cataract, the Egyptians seem never to have attempted it, trusting apparently to the solidity of their masonic structures for that eternity of duration they aspired to.

31. Mammeisi at Elephantine.

In addition to the temples above described, which are all more or less complex in plan, and all made up of various independent parts, there exists in Egypt a class of temples called mammeisi, dedicated to the mysterious accouchement of the mother of the gods. Small temples of this form are common to all ages, and belong as well to the 18th dynasty as to the time of the Ptolemys. One of them, built by Amenhotep III. at Elephantine, is represented in plan and elevation in the annexed cut. It is of a simple peristylar form, with columns in front and rear, the latter being now built into a wall, and seven square piers on each flank. These temples are all small, and, like the Typhonia, which somewhat resemble them, were used as detached chapels or cells, dependent on the larger temples. What renders them more than usually interesting to us is the fact that they were undoubtedly the originals of the Greek peristylar forms, that people having borrowed nearly every peculiarity of their architecture from the banks of the Nile. We possess tangible evidence of peristylar temples and Proto-Doric pillars erected in Egypt centuries before the oldest known specimen in Greece. We need therefore hardly hesitate to award the palm of invention of these things to the Egyptians, as we should probably be forced to do for most of the arts and sciences of the Greeks if we had only knowledge sufficient to enable us to trace the connecting links which once joined them together, but which are now in most instances lost, or at least difficult to find.

Of the first 10 dynasties of Egyptian kings little now remains but their tombs—the everlasting pyramids—and of the people they governed, only the structures and rock-cut excavations which they prepared for their final resting-places.

The Theban kings and their subjects erected no pyramids, and none of their tombs are structural—all are excavated from the living rock; and from Beni-Hasan to the Cataract the plain of the Nile is 133everywhere fringed with these singular monuments, which, if taken in the aggregate, perhaps required a greater amount of labour to excavate and to adorn than did even all the edifices of the plain. Certain it is that there is far more to be learnt of the arts, of the habits, and of the history of Egypt from these tombs than from all the other monuments. No tomb of any Theban king has yet been discovered anterior to the 18th dynasty; but all the tombs of that and of the subsequent dynasty have been found, or are known to exist, in the Valley of Bibán-el-Molook, on the western side of the plain of Thebes.

It appears to have been the custom with these kings, so soon as they ascended the throne, to begin preparing their final resting-place. The excavation seems to have gone on uninterruptedly year by year, the painting and adornment being finished as it progressed, till the hand of death ended the king’s reign, and simultaneously the works of his tomb. All was then left unfinished; the cartoon of the painter and the rough work of the mason and plasterer were suddenly broken off, as if the hour of the king’s demise called them, too, irrevocably from their labours.

The tomb thus became an index of the length of a king’s reign as well as of his magnificence. Of those in the Valley of the Kings the most splendid is that opened by Belzoni, and now known as that of Meneptah, the builder of the hypostyle hall at Karnac. It descends, in a sloping direction, for about 350 ft. into the mountain, the upper half of it being tolerably regular in plan and direction; but after progressing as far as the unfinished hall with two pillars, the direction changes, and the works begin again on a lower level, probably because they came in contact with some other tomb, or in consequence of meeting some flaw in the rock. It now terminates in a large and splendid chamber with a coved roof, in which stood, when opened by Belzoni, the rifled sarcophagus;^[58] but a drift-way has been excavated beyond this, as if it had been intended to carry the tomb still further had the king continued to reign.

32. Plan and Section of Tomb of Meneptah at Thebes. Scale for plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; section 50 ft. to 1 in.

The tomb of Rameses Maiamoun, the first king of the 19th dynasty, is more regular, and in some respects as magnificent as this, and that of Amenhotep III. is also an excavation of great beauty, and is adorned with paintings of the very best age. Like all the tombs, however, they depend for their magnificence more on the paintings that cover the walls than on anything which can strictly be called architecture, so that they hardly come properly within the scope of the present work: the same may be said of private tombs. Except those of Beni-Hasan, already illustrated by Woodcuts Nos. 16 to 18, these tombs are all mere chambers or corridors, without architectural ornament, but 134their walls are covered with paintings and hieroglyphics of singular interest and beauty. Generally speaking, it is assumed that the entrances of these tombs were meant to be concealed and hidden from the knowledge of the people after the king’s death. It is hardly conceivable, however, that so much pains should have been taken, and so much money lavished, on what was designed never again to testify to the magnificence of its founder. It is also very unlike the sagacity of the Egyptians to attempt what was so nearly impossible; for though the entrance of a pyramid might be so built up as to be unrecognisable, a cutting in the rock can never be repaired or disguised, and can only be temporarily concealed by heaping rubbish over it. Supposing it to have been intended to conceal the entrances, such an expedient was as clumsy and unlikely to have been resorted to by so ingenious a people as it has proved futile, for all the royal tombs in the valley of Bibán-el-Molook have been opened and rifled in a 135past age, and their sites and numbers were matters of public notoriety in the times of the Greeks and Romans. Many of the private tombs have architectural façades, and certainly never were meant to be concealed, so that it is not fair to assume that hiding their tombs’ entrances was ever a peculiarity of the Thebans, though it certainly was of the earlier Memphite kings.

Another class of monuments, almost exclusively Egyptian, are the obelisks, which form such striking objects in front of almost all the old temples of the country.

Small models of obelisks are found in the tombs of the age of the pyramid builders, and represented in their hieroglyphics; but the oldest public monument of the class known to exist is that at Heliopolis, erected by Osirtasen, the great king of the 12th dynasty. It is, like all the others, a single block of beautiful red granite of Syene, cut with all the precision of the age, tapering slightly towards the summit, and of about the average proportion, being about 10 diameters in height; exclusive of the top it is 67 ft. 4 in.

The two finest known to exist are, that now in the piazza of the Lateran, originally set up by Thothmes III., 105 ft. in height, and that still existing at Karnac, attributed to Thothmes II., 107 ft. in height. Both are now ascribed to Queen Hatshepsu their sister, who is recorded to have boasted that they were quarried, transported, and set up within the short space of seven months. Those of Luxor, erected by Rameses the Great, one of which is now in Paris, are above 77 ft. in height; and there are two others in Rome, each above 80 ft.

Rome, indeed, has 12 of these monuments within her walls—a greater number than exist, erect at least, in the country whence they came; though judging from the number that are found adorning single temples, it is difficult to calculate how many must once have existed in Egypt. Their use seems to have been wholly that of monumental pillars, recording the style and title of the king who erected them, his piety, and the proof he gave of it in dedicating these monoliths to the deity whom he especially wished to honour.

33. Lateran Obelisk. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in., for comparison with scale of other buildings.

It has been already remarked that, with scarcely an exception, all the pyramids are on the west side of the Nile, all the obelisks on the 136east; with regard to the former class of monument, this probably arose from a law of their existence, the western side of the Nile being in all ages preferred for sepulture, but with regard to the latter it seems to be accidental. Memphis doubtless possessed many monuments of this class, and there is reason to believe that the western temples of Thebes were also similarly adorned. They are, however, monuments easily broken; and, from their form, so singularly useful for many building purposes, that it is not to be wondered at if many of them have disappeared during the centuries that have elapsed since the greater number of them were erected.

Except one small royal pavilion at Medeenet Habû, no structure now remains in Egypt that can fairly be classed as a specimen of the domestic architecture of the ancient Egyptians; but at the same time we possess, in paintings and sculptures, so many illustrations of their domestic habits, so many plans, elevations, and views, and even models of their dwellings of every class, that we have no difficulty in forming a correct judgment not only of the style, but of the details, of their domestic architecture.

Although their houses exhibited nothing of the solidity and monumental character which distinguished their temples and palaces, they seem in their own way to have been scarcely less beautiful. They were of course on a smaller scale, and built of more perishable materials, but they appear to have been as carefully finished, and decorated with equal taste to that displayed in the greater works. We know also, from the tombs that remain to us, that, although the government of Egypt was a despotism of the strictest class, still the wealth of the land was pretty equally diffused among all classes, and that luxury and splendour were by no means confined either to the royal family or within the precincts of the palace. There is thus every reason to believe that the cities which have passed away were worthy of the temples that adorned them, and that the streets were as splendid and as tasteful as the public buildings themselves, and displayed, though in a more ephemeral form, the same wealth and power which still astonish us in the great monuments that remain.

Mr. Maspero, in his work on Egyptian archæology, translated by Miss Amelia B. Edwards^[59] devotes a chapter to the description of the existing remains of private dwellings and military architecture. The examples of the former are of comparatively small buildings, and were 137invariably built in crude or unburnt brick; in the neighbourhood of Memphis Mr. Maspero found walls still standing, from 30 to 40 ft. in height. The plans which are delineated on the walls of the tombs of the 18th dynasty enable us to judge of the extent and magnificence of the more important examples. These as a rule would seem to have features which are evidently derived from temple architecture, that is to say, the palaces are preceded by pylons and the courts enclosed and surrounded with porticoes. Of military architecture the oldest fortresses are those at Abydos, El Kab, and Semneh; at Abydos the earliest example consists of a parallelogram of crude brickwork measuring 410 ft. by 223 ft. The walls, which now stand from 24 to 36 ft. high, have lost somewhat of their original height: they are about 6 ft. thick at the top and were not built in uniform layers, but in huge vertical panels easily distinguished by the nature of the brickwork. In one division the course of the bricks is strictly horizontal, in the next it is slightly concave, and forms a very flat reversed arch, of which the extrados rests on the ground. The alternation of these two methods is regularly repeated. The object of this arrangement was possibly to resist earthquake shocks.

34. Pavilion at Medeenet Habû. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

35. View of Pavilion at Medeenet Habû.

No building can form a greater contrast with the temple behind it than does the little pavilion erected at Medeenet Habû by Rameses, the first king of the 19th dynasty. As will be seen by the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 34), it is singularly broken and varied in its outline, surrounding a small court in the shape of a cross. It is 3 storeys in height, and, properly speaking, consists of only 3 rooms on each floor, connected together by long winding passages. There is reason, however, to believe that this is only a fragment of the building, and foundations exist which render it probable that the whole was originally a square of the width of the front, and had other chambers, probably only in wood or brick, besides those we now find. This would hardly detract from the playful character of the design, and when coloured, as it originally was, and with its battlements or ornaments complete, it 138must have formed a composition as pleasing as it is unlike our usual conceptions of Egyptian art.

The other illustration represents in the Egyptians’ own quaint style a three-storeyed dwelling, the upper storey apparently being, like those of the Assyrians, an open gallery supported by dwarf columns. The lower windows are closed by shutters. In the centre is a staircase leading to the upper storey, and on the left hand an awning supported on wooden pillars, which seems to have been an indispensable part of all the better class of dwellings. Generally speaking, these houses are shown as situated in gardens laid out in a quaint, formal style, with pavilions, and fishponds, and all the other accompaniments of gardens in the East at the present day.

36. Elevation of a House. From an Egyptian Painting.

In all the conveniences and elegances of building they seem to have anticipated all that has been done in those countries down to the present day. Indeed, in all probability the ancient Egyptians surpassed the modern in those respects as much as they did in the more important forms of architecture.

CHAPTER V GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD. — Serapeum and Apis Mausoleum.

The third stage of Egyptian art is as exceptional as the two which preceded it, and as unlike anything else which has occurred in any other lands.

From the time of the 19th dynasty, with a slight revival under the Bubastite kings of the 22nd dynasty, Egypt sank through a long period of decay, till her misfortunes were consummated by the invasion of the Persians under Cambyses, 525 B.C. From that time she served in a bondage more destructive, if not so galling, as that of the Shepherd domination, till relieved by the more enlightened policy of the Ptolemys. Under them she enjoyed as great material prosperity as under her own Pharaohs; and her architecture and her arts too revived, not, it is true, with the greatness or the purity of the great national era, but still with much richness and material splendour.

This was continued under the Roman domination, and, judging from what we find in other countries, we would naturally expect to find traces of the influence of Greek and Roman art in the buildings of this age. So little, however, is this the case, that before the discovery of the reading of the hieroglyphic signs, the learned of Europe placed the Ptolemaic and Roman temples of Denderah and Kalábsheh before those of Thebes in order of date; and could not detect a single moulding in the architectural details, nor a single feature in the sculpture and painting which adorned their walls, which gave them a hint of the truth. Even Cleopatra the beautiful is represented on these walls with distinctly Egyptian features, and in the same tight garments and conventional forms as were used in the portrait of Nophre Ari, Queen of Rameses, or in those of the wives of the possessors of tombs in the age of the pyramids, 3000 years before. Egypt in fact conquered her conquerors, and forced them to adopt her customs and her arts, and to follow in the groove she had so long marked out for herself, and followed with such strange pertinacity.

Some of the temples of this age are, as far as dimensions and 140richness of decorations are concerned, quite worthy of the great age, though their plans and arrangements differ to a considerable extent. There is no longer any hesitation as to whether they should be called temples or palaces, for they all are exclusively devoted to worship,—and to the worship of a heavenly God, not of a deified king.

What these arrangements are will be well understood from the annexed plan of that of Edfû (Woodcut No. 37), which, though not the largest, is the most complete of those remaining. It is 450 ft. in length and 155 in width, and covers upwards of 70,000 ft.; its dimensions may be said to be equal to those of the largest of our mediæval cathedrals (Cologne or Amiens, for instance). Parts only—viz., the court C, and areas M M M—of the whole structure are roofed, and therefore it can scarcely be compared with buildings entirely under one roof.

37. Plan of Temple at Edfû, Apollinopolis Magna. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

In front of the temple are two large and splendid pylons, with the gateway in the centre, making up a façade 225 ft. in extent. Although this example has lost its crowning cornice, its sculptures and ornaments are still very perfect, and it may altogether be considered as a fair specimen of its class, though inferior in dimensions to many of those of the Pharaonic age. Within these is a court, 140 ft. by 161, surrounded by a colonnade on three sides, and on the fourth side the porch or portico which, in Ptolemaic temples, takes the place of the great hypostyle halls of the Pharaohs. It is lighted from the front over low screens placed between each of the pillars, a peculiarity scarcely ever found in temples of earlier date, though apparently common in domestic edifices, or those formed of wood, certainly as early as the middle of the 18th dynasty, as may 141be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 39), taken from a tomb of one of the sun-worshipping kings, who reigned between Amenhotep III. and Horus. From this we pass into an inner and smaller porch, and again through two passages to a dark and mysterious sanctuary, surrounded by darker passages and chambers, well calculated to mystify and strike with awe any worshipper or neophyte who might be admitted to their gloomy precincts.

38. View of Temple at Edfû as it was, before it was cleared out and the dwellings on the roof removed.

The celebrated temple at Denderah is similar to this, and slightly larger, but it has no fore-court, no propylons, and no enclosing outer walls. Its façade is given in the woodcut (No. 40). Its Isis-headed columns are not equal to those of Edfû in taste or grace; but it has the advantage of situation, and this temple is not encumbered either 142by sand or huts, which still disfigure so many Egyptian temples. Its effect, consequently, on travellers is always more striking.

The Roman temple at Kalábsheh (Woodcuts Nos. 42 and 43), above the Cataract, is a fair specimen of these temples on a smaller scale. The section (Woodcut No. 43) shows one of the modes by which a scanty light was introduced into the inner cells, and their gradation in height. The position, too, of its propylons is a striking instance of the irregularity which distinguishes all the later Egyptian styles from that of the rigid, proportion-loving pyramid builders of Memphis.

39. Bas-relief at Tel el Amarna.

40. Façade of Temple at Denderah. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

This irregularity of plan was nowhere carried to such an extent as in the Ptolemaic temple on the island of Philæ (Woodcut No. 45). Here no two buildings, scarcely any two walls, are on the same axis or parallel to one another. No Gothic architect in his wildest moments ever played so freely with his lines or dimensions, and none, it must be added, ever produced anything so beautifully picturesque as this. It contains all the play of light and shade, all the variety, of Gothic art, with the massiveness and grandeur of the Egyptian style; and as it is still tolerably entire, and retains much of its colour, there is no building out of Thebes that gives so favourable an impression of Egyptian 143art as this. It is true it is far less sublime than many, but hardly one can be quoted as more beautiful.

Notwithstanding its irregularity, this temple has the advantage of being nearly all of the same age, and erected according to one plan, while the greater buildings at Thebes are often aggregations of parts of different ages; and though each is beautiful in itself, the result is often not quite so harmonious as might be desired. In this respect the Ptolemaic temples certainly have the advantage, inasmuch as they are all of one age, and all completed according to the plan on which they were designed; a circumstance which, to some extent at least, compensates for their marked inferiority in size and style, and the littleness of all the ornaments and details as compared with those of the Pharaonic period. It must at the same time be admitted that this inferiority is more apparent in the sculpture of the Ptolemaic age than in its architecture. The general design of the buildings is frequently grand and imposing, but the details are always inferior; and the sculpture and painting, which in the great age add so much to the beauty of the whole, are in the Ptolemaic age always frittered away, ill-arranged, unmeaning, and injurious to the general effect instead of heightening and improving it.

41. Pillar, from the Porticocat Denderah.

42. Plan of Temple at Kalábsheh. Scale 100 ft. 1 in.

On the east side of the island is the very beautiful structure known as “Pharaoh’s bed” (n). It is an oblong rectangular building of late date, surrounded by an intercolumnar screen with 18 columns. It was roofed with stone slabs supported on wooden beams, the sockets to receive which still exist. There is a doorway on the west wall, and another on the east wall opening on to a stone terrace or quay. Similar structures are believed to have existed at Thebes, close to the river, and connected by causeways with the temples; they may therefore have served as halls from which the processions started after disembarking from the boats on the river.

144Strange as it may at first sight appear, we know less of the manners and customs of the Egyptian people during the Greek and Roman domination, than we do of them during the earlier dynasties. All the buildings erected after the time of Alexander which have come down to our time are essentially temples. Nothing that can be called a palace or pavilion has survived, and no tombs, except some of Roman date at Alexandria, are known to exist. We have consequently no pictures of gardens, with their villas and fish-ponds; no farms, with their cattle; no farmyards, with their geese and ducks; no ploughing or sowing; no representations of the mechanical arts; no dancing or amusements; no arms or campaigns. Nothing, in short, but worship in its most material and least intellectual form.

43. Section of Temple at Kalábsheh. 50 ft. to 1 in.

It is a curious inversion of the usually received dogmata on this subject, but as we read the history of Egypt as written on her monuments, we find her first wholly occupied with the arts of peace, agricultural and industrious, avoiding war and priestcraft, and eminently practical in all her undertakings. In the middle period we find her half political, half religious; sunk from her early happy position to a state of affairs such as existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. In her third and last stage we find her fallen under the absolute influence of the most degrading superstition. We know from her masters that she had no political freedom and no external influence at this time; but we hardly expected to find her sinking deeper and deeper into superstition, at a time when the world was advancing forward with such rapid strides in the march of civilisation, as was the case between the ages of Alexander and that of Constantine. It probably was in consequence of this retrograde course that her civilisation perished so absolutely and entirely under the influence of the rising star of Christianity; and that, long before the Arab conquest, not a trace of it was left in any form. What had stood the vicissitudes of 3000 years, and was complete and stable under Hadrian, had vanished when Constantine ascended the throne.

44. View of Temple at Philæ.

45. Plan of Temple at Philæ. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

If, however, their civilisation passed so suddenly away, their buildings remain to the present day; and taken altogether, we may perhaps 145safely assert that the Egyptians were the most essentially a building people of all those we are acquainted with, and the most generally successful in all they attempted in this way. The Greeks, it is true, surpassed them in refinement and beauty of detail, and in the class of sculpture with which they ornamented their buildings, while the Gothic architects far excelled them in constructive cleverness; but with these exceptions no other styles can be put in competition with them. At the same time, neither Grecian nor Gothic architects understood more perfectly all the gradations of art, and the exact character that should be given to every form and every detail. Whether it was the plain flat-sided pyramid, the crowded and massive hypostyle hall, 146the playful pavilion, or the luxurious dwelling—in all these the Egyptians understood perfectly both how to make the general design express exactly what was wanted, and to make every detail, and all the various materials, contribute to the general effect. They understood, also, better than any other nation, how to use sculpture in combination with architecture, and to make their colossi and avenues of sphinxes group themselves into parts of one great design, and at the same time to use historical paintings, fading by insensible degrees into hieroglyphics on the one hand, and into sculpture on the other—linking the whole together with the highest class of phonetic utterance. With the most brilliant colouring, they thus harmonised all these arts into one great whole, unsurpassed by anything the world has seen during the thirty centuries of struggle and aspiration that have elapsed since the brilliant days of the great kingdom of the Pharaohs.

The remains of the Serapeum and the burial-places of the sacred bulls (who, when alive, were worshipped at Memphis), were discovered by M. Mariette in 1860-61. Of the former, sufficient traces were found to show that it resembled in its arrangement the ordinary Egyptian temple, viz., with pylons, preceded by an avenue of sphinxes, and an enclosed space behind, with halls and chambers, in one of which was the opening to the inclined passage leading to the subterranean galleries. The earlier tombs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties were hewn in the rocky platform. From the 22nd to the 25th dynasty the bulls were buried in a subterranean gallery. The same system was adopted from the 26th dynasty till the time of the later Ptolemies (circa 50 B.C.), but the galleries were of greater size and magnificence, having an extent of 400 yards, and the bulls were interred in immense granite sarcophagi placed in niches, on both sides of the galleries, but never opposite to one another. The chief historical value of the discovery rests in the steles, or inscribed tablets, some 500 in number, placed there as ex-votos by pious visitors, the principal examples of which are now in the Gizeh Museum or in the Louvre.

CHAPTER VI. ETHIOPIA.

It was long a question with the learned whether civilisation ascended or descended the Nile—whether it was a fact, as the Greeks evidently believed, that Meroë was the parent State whence the Egyptians had migrated to the north, bringing with them the religion and the arts which afterwards flourished at Thebes and Memphis—or whether these had been elaborated in the fertile plains of Egypt, and only in later times had extended to the Upper Nile.

Recent discoveries have rendered it nearly certain that the latter is the correct statement of the facts—within historic times at least—that the fertile and easily cultivated Delta was first occupied and civilised; then Thebes, and afterwards Meroë. At the same time it is by no means improbable that the Ethiopians were of the same stock as the Thebans, though differing essentially from the Memphites, and that the former may have regarded these remote kindred with respect, perhaps even with a degree of half-superstitious reverence due to their remote situation in the centre of a thinly-peopled continent, and have in consequence invented those fables which the Greeks interpreted too literally.

If any such earlier civilisation existed in these lands, its records and its monuments have perished. No building is now found in Meroë whose date extends beyond the time of the great king Tirhakah, of the 25th Egyptian dynasty, B.C. 724 to 680, unless it be those bearing the name of one king, Amoum Gori, who was connected with the intruding race of sun-worshippers, which broke in upon the continuous succession of the kings of the 18th dynasty. Their monuments were all purposely destroyed by their successors; and almost the only records we have of them are the grottoes of Tel el Amarna, covered with their sculptures, which bear, it must be confessed, considerable resemblance in style to those found in Ethiopia. Even this indication is too slight to be of much value; and we must wait for some further confirmation before founding any reasoning upon it.

The principal monuments of Tirhakah are two temples at Gibel Barkal, a singular isolated mount near the great southern bend of the 148river. One is a large first-class temple, of purely Egyptian form and design, about 500 ft. in length by 120 or 140 in width, consisting of two great courts, with their propylons, and with internal halls and sanctuaries arranged much like those of the Rameseum at Thebes (Woodcut No. 19), and so nearly also on the same scale as to make it probable that the one is a copy of the other.

The other temple placed near this, but as usual unsymmetrically, consists of an outer hall, internally about 50 ft. by 60, the roof of which is supported by four ranges of columns, all with capitals representing figures of Typhon or busts of Isis. This leads to an inner cell or sanctuary, cut in the rock.^[60]

46. Pyramids at Meroë. (From Hoskins’s ‘Travels in Ethiopia.’)

Fig. 1.—Plan of Principal Group. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Fig. 2.—Section and Elevation of that marked A. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

There are smaller remains strewed about, indicating the existence of a city on the spot, but nothing of architectural importance.

The most remarkable monuments of the Ethiopian kingdom are the pyramids, of which three great groups have been discovered and described. The principal group is at a place called Dankelah, the assumed site of the ancient Meroë, in latitude 17° north. Another is at Gibel Barkal; the third at Nourri, a few miles lower down than the last named, but probably only another necropolis of the same city.

Compared with the great Memphite examples, these pyramids are most insignificant in size—the largest at Nourri being only 110 ft. by 100; at Gibel Barkal the largest is only 88 ft. square; at Meroë none 149exceed 60 ft. each way. They differ also in form from those of Egypt, being much steeper, as their height is generally equal to the width of the base. They also all possess the roll-moulding on their angles, and all have a little porch or pronaos attached to one side, generally ornamented with sculpture, and forming either a chapel, or more probably the place where the coffin of the deceased was placed. We know from the Greeks that, so far from concealing the bodies of their dead, the Ethiopians had a manner of preserving them in some transparent substance, which rendered them permanently visible after death.^[61]

To those familiar with the rigid orientation of those of Lower Egypt, perhaps the most striking peculiarity of the pyramids is the more than Theban irregularity with which they were arranged, no two being ever placed, except by accident, at the same angle to the meridian, but the whole being grouped with the most picturesque diversity, as chance appears to have dictated.

Among their constructive peculiarities it may be mentioned that they seem all to have been first built in successive terraces, each less in dimensions than that below it, something like the great pyramid at Sakkara (Woodcut No. 9), these being afterwards smoothed over by the external straight-lined coating.

Like the temples of Gibel Barkal, all these buildings appear to belong to the Tirhakah epoch of the Ethiopian kingdom. It is extremely improbable that any of them are as old as the time of Solomon, or that any are later than the age of Cambyses, every indication seeming to point to a date between these two great epochs, and to the connection of African history with that of Asia.

The ruins at Wady-el-Ooatib, a little further up the Nile than Meroë, should perhaps be also mentioned here, if only from the importance given to them by Heeren, who thought he had discovered in them the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Ammon. They are, however, all in the debased style of the worst age of Ptolemaic or Roman art in that country. They are wholly devoid of hieroglyphics, or any indication of sanctity or importance, and there can be little doubt that they are the remains of a caravansera on the great commercial route between Egypt and Axum, along which the greater part of the trade of the East arrived at Alexandria in the days of its magnificence.

Although widely differing in date from the monuments just described—except the last—this may be the place to mention a group of the most exceptional monuments of the world—the obelisks of Axum. It is said they were originally 55 in number, four of them equal to that shown in the annexed woodcut, which represents the only one now standing; but there are fragments of several of these 150lying about, and some of the smaller ones still standing, all of the same class and very similar in design to the large one. Its height, according to Lord Valentia, is 60 ft., its width at base nearly 10, and it is of one stone. The idea is evidently Egyptian, but the details are Indian. It is, in fact, an Indian nine-storeyed pagoda, translated in Egyptian in the first century of the Christian era!

47. Obelisks at Axum. (From Lord Valentia’s ‘Travels.’)

The temple most like it in India is probably that at Budh Gya. That, in its present form, is undoubtedly more modern, but probably retains many of its original features. It also resembles the tower at Chittore,^[62] but towers are from their form such frail structures, that certainly nine-tenths of those that once existed have perished; and it is only because they are so frequent still in China and other Buddhist countries that we are sure that the accounts are true which represent them as once as frequent as in the country of their birth. Be this as it may, this exceptional monolith exactly represents that curious marriage of Indian with Egyptian art which we would expect to find in the spot where the two people came in contact, and enlisted architecture to symbolise their commercial union.

BOOK II. — CHAPTER I. ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. — INTRODUCTORY.

It is by no means impossible that the rich alluvial plain of Shinar may have been inhabited by man as early as the Valley of the Nile; but if this were so, it is certain that the early dwellers in the land have left no trace of their sojourn which has as yet rewarded the research of modern investigators. So far indeed our knowledge at present extends, we have proof of the existence of the primitive races of mankind in the valleys of France and England at a far earlier period than we trace their remains on the banks of either the Euphrates or the Nile. It is true these European vestiges of prehistoric man are not architectural, and have consequently no place here, except in so far as they free us from the trammels of a chronology now admitted to be too limited in duration, but which has hitherto prevented us from grasping, as we might have done, the significance of architectural history in its earliest dawn.

Unfortunately for our investigation of Chaldean antiquity, the works of Berosus, the only native historian we know of, have come down to us in even a more fragmentary state than the lists of Manetho, and the monuments have not yet enabled us to supply those deficiencies so completely, though there is every prospect of their eventually doing so to a considerable extent. In the meanwhile the most successful attempt to restore the text which has been made, is that of Herr Gutschmid,^[63] and it is probable that the dates he assigns are very near the truth. Rejecting the 1st dynasty of 86 Chaldeans and their 34,080 years as mythical, or as merely expressing the belief of the historian that the country was inhabited 152by a Chaldean race for a long time before the Median invasion, he places that event 2458 B.C. His table of dynasties then runs thus.—

As every advance that has been made, either in deciphering the inscriptions or in exploring the ruins since this reading was proposed, have tended to confirm its correctness, it may fairly be assumed to represent very nearly the true chronology of the country from Nimrod to Cyrus. Assuming this to be so, it is interesting to observe that the conquest of Babylonia by the Medes only slightly preceded the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos, and that the fortification of Avaris “against the Assyrians”^[64] was synchronous with the rise of the great Chaldean dynasty, most probably under Nimrod, B.C. 2234. If this is so, the whole of the old civilisation of Egypt under the pyramid-building kings had passed away before the dawn of history in Babylonia. The Theban kings of the 12th dynasty had spread their conquests into Asia, and thus it seems brought back the reaction of the Scythic invasion on their own hitherto inviolate land, and by these great interminglings of the nations Asia was first raised to a sense of her greatness.

What we learn from this table seems to be that a foreign invasion of Medes—whoever they may have been—disturbed the hitherto peaceful tenor of the Chaldean kingdom some twenty-five centuries before the Christian era.

They, in their turn, were driven out to make place for the Chaldean dynasties, which we have every reason to suppose were those founded by Nimrod about the year 2235 B.C.

This kingdom seems to have lasted about seven centuries without any noticeable interruption, and then to have been overthrown by an invasion from the west about the year 1518 B.C. Can this mean the Egyptian conquest under the kings of the great 18th dynasty?

The depression of the Chaldeans enabled the Assyrians to raise their heads and found the great kingdom afterwards known as that of Nineveh, about the year 1273. For six centuries and a half they were the great people of Asia, and during the latter half of that period built all those palaces which have so recently been disinterred.

153They were struck down in their turn by the kings of Babylonia, who established the second Chaldean kingdom about the year 625, but only to give place to the Persians under Cyrus in the year 538, after little more than a century of duration.

As in the Valley of the Nile, the first kingdom was established near the mouths of the Euphrates, and flourished there for centuries before it was superseded by the kingdom of Nineveh, in the same manner as Thebes had succeeded to the earlier seat of power in the neighbourhood of Memphis.

Owing to the fortunate employment of sculptured alabaster slabs to line the walls of the palaces during the great period of Assyrian prosperity, we are enabled to restore the plan of the royal palaces of that period with perfect certainty, and in consequence of the still more fortunate introduction of stone masonry during the Persian period—after they had come into contact with the Greeks—we can understand the construction of these buildings, and restore the form of many parts which, being originally of wood, have perished. The Plains of Shinar possessed no natural building material of a durable nature, and even wood or fuel of any kind seems to have been so scarce that the architects were content too frequently to resort to the use of bricks only dried in the sun. The consequence is that the buildings of the early Chaldeans are now generally shapeless masses, the plans of which it is often extremely difficult to follow, and in no instance has any edifice been discovered so complete that we can feel quite sure we really know all about it. Fortunately, however, the temples at Wurka and Mugheyr become intelligible by comparison with the Birs Nimroud and the so-called tomb of Cyrus, and the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad from the corresponding ones at Susa and Persepolis. Consequently, if we attempt to study the architecture of Chaldea, of Assyria, or of Persia, as separate styles, we find them so fragmentary, owing to the imperfection of the materials in which they were carried out, that it is difficult to understand their forms. But taken as the successive developments of one great style, the whole becomes easily intelligible; and had the southern excavations been conducted with a little more care, there is perhaps no feature that would have been capable of satisfactory explanation. Even as it is, however, the explorations of the last fifteen years have enabled us to take a very comprehensive view of what the architecture of the valley of the Euphrates was during the 2000 years it remained a great independent monarchy. It is a chapter in the history of the art which is entirely new to us, and which may lead to the most important results in clearing our ideas as to the origin of styles. Unfortunately, it is only in a scientific sense that this is true. Except the buildings at Persepolis, everything is buried or heaped together in such confusion that the passing traveller sees 154nothing. It is only by study and comparison that the mind eventually realises the greatness and the beauty of the most gorgeous of Eastern monarchies, or that any one can be made to feel that he actually sees the sculptures which a Sardanapalus set up, or the tablets which a Nebuchadnezzar caused to be engraved.

Owing to the fragmentary nature of the materials, it must perhaps be admitted that the study of the ancient architecture of Central Asia is more difficult and less attractive than that of other countries and more familiar forms. On the other hand, it is an immense triumph to the philosophical student of art to have penetrated so far back towards the root of Asiatic civilisation. It is besides as great a gain to the student of history to have come actually into contact with the works of kings whose names have been familiar to him as household words, but of whose existence he had until lately no tangible proof.

In addition to this it must be admitted that the Assyrian exploration commenced in 1843 by M. Botta, at Khorsabad, and brought to a temporary close by the breaking out of the war in 1855, have added an entirely new chapter to our history of architecture; and, with the exception of that of Egypt, probably the most ancient we can ever now hope to obtain. It does not, it is true, rival that of Egypt in antiquity, as the Pyramids still maintain a pre-eminence of 1000 years beyond anything that has yet been discovered in the valley of the Euphrates, and we now know, approximately at least, what we may expect to find on the banks of that celebrated river. There is nothing certainly in India that nearly approaches these monuments in antiquity, nor in China or the rest of Asia; and in Europe, whatever may be maintained regarding primæval man, we can hardly expect to find any building of a date prior to the Trojan war. All our histories must therefore begin with Egypt and Assyria—beyond them all is speculation, and new fields of discovery can hardly be hoped for.

The Assyrian discoveries are also most important in supplying data which enable us to understand what follows, especially in the architectural history of Greece. No one now probably doubts that the Dorian Greeks borrowed the idea of their Doric order from the pillars of Beni-Hasan (Woodcuts Nos. 15 and 16) or Nubia—or rather perhaps from the rubble or brick piers of Memphis or Naucratis,^[65] from which these rock-cut examples were themselves imitated. But the origin of the Ionic element was always a mystery. We knew indeed that the Greeks practised it principally in Asia Minor—hence its name; but we never knew how essentially Asiatic it was till the architecture of Nineveh was revealed to us, and till, by studying it through the medium of the buildings at Persepolis, we were made to 155feel how completely the Ionic order was a Grecian refinement on the wooden and somewhat Barbaric orders of the Euphrates valley.

It is equally, or perhaps almost more, important to know that in Chaldea we are able to trace the origin of those Buddhist styles of art which afterwards pervaded the whole of Eastern Asia, and it may be also the germs of the architecture of Southern India.^[66] These affinities, however, have not yet been worked out, hardly even hinted at; but they certainly will one day become most important in tracing the origin of the religious development of the further East.

In these researches neither the literature nor the language of the country avail us much. If the affinities are ever traced, it will be through the architecture, and that alone; but there is every prospect of its proving sufficient for the purpose when properly explored.

It will hardly be necessary even to allude to the decipherment of the mysterious written characters of the Chaldeans. There is probably no one now living, who has followed up the course of the inquiry with anything like a proper degree of study, who has any doubt regarding the general correctness of the interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions. Singularly enough, the great difficulty is with regard to proper names, which as a rule were not spelt phonetically, but were made up of symbols. This is provoking, as these names afford the readiest means of comparing the monuments with our histories; and the uncertainty as to their pronunciation has induced many to fancy that the foundation of the whole system is unstable. But all this is becoming daily less and less important as the history itself is being made out from the monuments themselves. It may also be true that, when it is attempted to translate literally metaphysical or astrological treatises, there may still be differences of opinion as to the true meaning of a given passage; but plain historical narratives can be read with nearly as much certainty as a chapter of Herodotus or of Plutarch; and every day is adding to the facility with which they can be deciphered, and to the stock of materials and facts with which the readings may be checked or rectified.

From the materials already collected, combined with the chronology above sketched out, we are enabled to divide the architectural history of the Middle Asiatic countries during the period of their ancient greatness into three distinct and well-defined epochs.

1st. The ancient Babylonian or Chaldean period, ranging from 156B.C. 2234 to 1520, comprising the ruins at Wurka, Mugheyr, Abu Shahrein, Niffer, Kaleh Sherghat, &c. Temples, tombs, and private dwellings, all typical of a Turanian or Scythic race.

2nd. The Assyrian and second Chaldean kingdoms, founded about 1290 B.C., and extending down to the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus, 538 B.C., comprising all the buildings of Nimroud, Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and those of the second Babylon. An architecture essentially palatial, without tombs, and few temples, betokening the existence of a Semitic race.

3rd. The Persian, commencing with Cyrus, 538 B.C., and ending with Alexander, B.C. 333, comprising Pasargadæ, Susa, and Persepolis. An architecture copied from the preceding: palatial, with rock tombs and small temples. Aryan it may be, but of so strangely mixed a character that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from its sister styles. Either it seems to be that Cyrus and his descendants were of Turanian blood, governing an Aryan people, or that they were Aryan, but that there was so strong an infusion of Turanians among their subjects that they were forced to follow their fashions. Perhaps a little of both: but taking the evidence as it now stands, it seems as if the first hypothesis is that nearest the truth. These rock-cut tombs, and the splendour of their sepulchral arrangements generally, savour strongly of Scythic blood; and their gorgeous palaces, their love of art, the splendour of their state and ceremonial, all point to feelings far more prevalent among the Turanians than to anything ever found among kings or people of an Aryan race.

None of these styles, however, are perfectly pure, or distinct one from the other. The three races always inhabited the country as they do now. And as at this hour the Turkish governor issues his edicts in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, so did Darius write the history of his reign on the rocks at Behistun in Persian, Assyrian, and the old Scythic or Median tongue. The same three races occupied the country then as they do now. But each race was supreme in the order just given, and the style of each predominated during the period of their sway, though impregnated with the feelings and peculiarities of the other two. It is this, indeed, which gives the architecture of the country in that age its peculiar value to the archæologist. The three great styles of the world are here placed in such close juxtaposition, that they can be considered as a whole, illustrating and supplementing each other, but still sufficiently distinct never to lose their most marked characteristics. The materials are still, it must be confessed, somewhat scanty to make all this clear; but every day is adding to them, and, even now, no one familiar with architectural analysis can be mistaken in recognising the leading features of the investigation.

CHAPTER II. CHALDEAN TEMPLES.

Already the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve temples have been identified as founded by them; but unfortunately none of these are in a sufficiently perfect state to afford any certainty as to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet properly restore a temple of the old Chaldean epoch.

Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of architecture to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples which were only known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which are the earliest forms of a type of temples found afterwards continually cropping up in the East.

It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of Turanian origin should be without temples of some sort, but, except the description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea what the general outline of their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many, perhaps most, of the Buddhist forms of architecture in India and further eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs Nimroud is the type which two thousand years 158afterwards was copied at Pagahn in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in Java; and that the descent from these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the present day.

The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt bricks; or when a better class of bricks was employed, as was probably the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the circumstance that those who have explored them have in many cases not been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities of the building they were exploring.

Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood or with crude bricks. It thus happens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadæ enables us to verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon, and to realise much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms.

The oldest temple we know of at present is the Bowariyeh at Wurka (Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years B.C.; but now so utterly ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It seems, however, to have consisted of two storeys at least: the lowest about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two storeys taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain that a third or chamber storey existed above the parts that are now apparent.^[68]

The Mugheyr Temple^[69] is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it is only the lower storey that can be considered old. The cylinders found in the angles of the upper part belong to Nabonidus, the last king of the later Babylonian kingdom; and the third storey only exists in tradition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its plan was originally a rectangle 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in the longer and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second storey 119 feet by 75, placed as is usual nearer one end of the lower storey, so as to admit of a staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from 159the other; but whether the whole of this was occupied by a flight of steps or not is by no means clear. Taken altogether, the plan and probable appearance of the building when complete may have been something like that represented in Woodcuts Nos. 48 and 49, though there are too many elements of uncertainty to make it a restoration which can altogether be depended upon.

48. Diagram of Elevation of Temple at Mugheyr. 100 ft. to 1 in.

49. Plan of Temple at Mugheyr. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The typical example of this class of temples is the Birs Nimroud,^[70] near Babylon. It is true that as it now stands every brick bears the stamp of Nebochadnassar, by whom it was repaired, perhaps nearly rebuilt; but there is no reason for supposing that he changed the original plan, or that the sacred form of these temples had altered in the interval. It owes its more perfect preservation to the fact of the upper storey having been vitrified, after erection, by some process we do not quite understand. This now forms a mass of slag, which has to a great extent protected the lower storeys from atmospheric influences.

In so far as it has been explored, the lower storey forms a perfect square, 272 feet each way. Above this are six storeys, each 42 feet less in horizontal dimensions. These are not placed concentrically on those below them, but at a distance of only 12 feet from the south-eastern 160edge, and consequently 30 feet from the N.W., and 21 feet from the two other sides.

50. Diagram Elevation of Birs Nimroud. Scale 100 ft. to 4 in.

51. Diagram Plan of Birs Nimroud. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The height of the three upper storeys seems to have been ascertained with sufficient correctness to be 15 feet each, or 45 feet together. Unfortunately no excavation was undertaken to ascertain the height of the lowest and most important storey. Sir Henry Rawlinson assumes it at 26; and I have ventured to make it 45, from the analogy of the tomb of Cyrus and the temple at Mugheyr. 161The height of the two intermediate storeys, instead of being 22 feet 6 inches, as we might expect, was 26, which seems to have resulted from some adjustment due to the chambers which ranged along their walls on two sides. The exact form and dimensions of these chambers were not ascertained, which is very much to be regretted, as they seem the counterpart of those which surrounded Solomon’s Temple and the Viharas in India, and are consequently among the most interesting peculiarities of this building.

No attempt was made to investigate the design of the upper storey, though it does not seem that it would be difficult to do so, as fragments of its vaulted roof are strewed about the base of the tower-like fragment that remains, from which a restoration might be effected by any one accustomed to such investigations.^[71] What we do know is that it was the cella or sanctuary of the temple.^[72] There probably also was a shrine on the third platform.

This temple, as we know from the decipherment of the cylinders which were found on its angles, was dedicated to the seven planets or heavenly spheres, and we find it consequently adorned with the colours of each. The lower, which was also richly panelled, was black, the colour of Saturn; the next, orange, the colour of Jupiter; the third, red, emblematic of Mars; the fourth, yellow, belonging to the sun; the fifth and sixth, green and blue respectively, as dedicated to Venus and Mercury; and the upper probably white, that being the colour belonging to the Moon, whose place in the Chaldean system would be uppermost.

Access to each of these storeys was obtained by stairs, probably arranged as shown in the plan; these have crumbled away or been removed, though probably traces of them might still have been found if the explorations had been more complete.

Another temple of the same class was exhumed at Khorsabad about twenty years ago by M. Place. It consisted, like the one at Borsippa, of seven storeys, but, in this instance, each was placed concentrically on the one below it: and instead of stairs on the sloping face, a ramp wound round the tower, as we are told was the case with the temple of Belus at Babylon. The four lower storeys are still perfect: each of them is richly panelled and coloured as above mentioned, and in some parts even the parapet of the ramp still remains in situ. The 162three upper storeys are gone, but may be easily restored from those below, as was done by M. Place, as shown in the annexed woodcut. According to him, it was an observatory, and had no cella on its summit. If this was the case it was a Semitic temple, and belongs to a quite different religion from that whose temples we have been describing. But unfortunately there is no direct evidence to determine whether it had such a chamber or not. My own impressions on the subject are decidedly at variance with those of M. Place, but until some bas-reliefs are discovered containing representations of these temples and of their cells, we shall probably hardly ever know exactly what the form of the crowning member really was. From the imitations in modern times we seem to see dimly that it was conical, and possibly curvilinear. The dimensions of this tower at Khorsabad were, 150 feet square at the base and 135 high from the pavement to the platform on its summit. Its base, however, was at a considerable elevation above the plain, so that when seen from below it must have been an imposing object.

52. Observatory at Khorsabad, from Places ‘Ninive et l’Assyrie.’ Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

53. Plan of Observatory, Khorsabad. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

163The inscriptions at Borsippa and elsewhere mention other temples of the same class, and no doubt those of Babylon were more magnificent than any we have yet found; but they must always have been such prominent objects, and the materials of which they were composed so easily removed, that it is doubtful if anything more perfect will now be found.

The Mujelibé, described by Rich, and afterwards explored without success by Layard, is probably the base of the great temple of Belus described by the Greeks; but even its dimensions can now hardly be ascertained, so completely is it ruined. It seems, however, to be a parallelogram of about 600 feet square,^[73] and rising to a height of about 140 feet; but no trace of the upper storeys exist, nor indeed anything which would enable us to speak with certainty of the form of the basement itself. If this is the height of the basement, however, analogy would lead us to infer that the six storeys rose to a height of about 450 feet; and with the ziggurah or sikra on their summit, the whole height may very well have been the stadium mentioned by Strabo.^[74]

As before mentioned, p. 158, we have fortunately in the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadæ (Woodcuts Nos. 84-86) a stone copy of these temples; in this instance, however, so small that it can hardly be considered as more than a model, but not the less instructive on that account. Like the Birs Nimroud, the pyramid consists of six storeys: the three upper of equal height, in this instance 231⁄2 inches; the next two are equal to each other, and, as in the Birs Nimroud, in the ratio of 26 to 15, or 41 inches. The basement is equal to the three upper put together, or 5 ft. 9 in., making a total of 18 ft. 4 in.^[75] The height of the cella is equal to the height of the basement, but this may be owing to the small size of the whole edifice, it being necessary to provide a chamber of a given dimension for the sepulchre. In the larger temples, it may be 164surmised that the height was divided into four nearly equal parts; one being given to the basement, one to the two next storeys, one to the three upper storeys, and the fourth to the chamber on the summit.

There is one other source from which we may hope to obtain information regarding these temples, and that is, the bas-reliefs on the walls of the Assyrian palaces. They drew architecture, however, so badly, that it is necessary to be very guarded in considering such representations as more than suggestions; but the annexed woodcut (No. 54) does seem to represent a four-storeyed temple, placed on a mound, with very tolerable correctness, and if the upper storey had not been broken away the drawing might have given us a valuable hint as to the form and purposes of the cella, which was the principal object of the erection. Its colouring, too, is gone; but the certain remains of symbolical colours at Borsippa and Khorsabad confirm so completely the Greek accounts of the seven-coloured walls of Ecbatana that with the other indications of the same sort extant that branch of the inquiry may be considered as complete.

54. Representation of a Temple. (From a Bas-relief from Koyunjik.)

It is to be hoped that now that the thread is caught, it will be followed up till this form of temple is thoroughly investigated; for to the philosophical student of architectural history few recent discoveries are of more interest. There hardly seems a doubt but that many temples found further eastward are the direct lineal descendants of these Babylonian forms, though we as yet can only pick up here and there the missing links of the chain of evidence which connects the one with 165the other. We know, however, that Buddhism is essentially the religion of a Turanian people, and it has long been suspected that there was some connection between the Magi of Central Asia and the priests of that religion, and that some of its forms at least were elaborated in the valley of the Euphrates. If the architectural investigation is fully carried out, I feel convinced we shall be able to trace back to their source many things which hitherto have been unexplained mysteries, and to complete the history of this form of temple and of the religion to which it belonged, from the Bowariyeh at Wurka, built 2000 years B.C., to the Temple of Heaven erected in the city of Pekin within the limits of the present century.

55. Elevation of a portion of the external Wall of Wuswus at Wurka (From Loftus.)

56. Plan of portion of Wuswus.

The only exception to the class of temple mounds found in Chaldea is the ruin of Wuswus, at Wurka,^[76] which seems to partake of the character of a palace. Whether it is or not is by no means clear, as the interior is too much ruined for its plan to be traced with certainty, and its date cannot be fixed from any internal evidence. Some of the bricks used in its construction bear the name of Sin Shada 1700 B.C., but it is suspected they may have been brought from an older edifice. The same sort of panelling was used by Sargon at Khorsabad 1000 years after the assumed date; and panelling very like it is used even in the age of the Pyramids (Woodcuts Nos. 11 and 12), 1000 years at least before that time. With more knowledge we may recognise minor features which may enable us to discriminate more exactly, but at present we only know that this class of panelling was used for the 166adornment of external walls from the earliest ages down at least to the destruction of Babylon. It was probably used with well-marked characteristics in progression of style; but these we have yet to ascertain. Externally the Wuswus is a parallelogram 256 ft. by 173. Like almost every building in the Euphrates valley in those ancient times, instead of the sides facing the cardinal points of the compass, as was the case in Egypt in the Pyramid age, the angles point towards them. In this case the entrance is in the north-east face. The centre apparently was occupied by a court; and opposite the entrance were two larger and several smaller apartments, the larger being 57 ft. by 30. The great interest of the building lies in the mode in which the external walls were ornamented (Woodcuts Nos. 56 and 57). These 167were plastered and covered by an elaborate series of reedings and square sinkings, forming a beautiful and very appropriate mode of adorning the wall of a building that had no external openings.

57. Elevation of Wall at Wurka (From the Report of the Assyrian Excavation Fund.)

This system is carried still further in a fragment of a wall in the same city, but of uncertain date. In this instance these reedings—there are no panels in the smaller fragment—and the plain surfaces are ornamented by an elaborate mosaic of small cones about 3 or 31⁄2 in. long. The butt or thicker end of these is dipped in colour, and they are then built up into patterns as shown in the woodcut No. 58. It is probable that the walls of the Wuswus were adorned with similar patterns in colours, but being executed in less durable materials, have perished. Indeed, from the accounts which we have, as well as from the remains, we are justified in asserting that this style of architecture depended for its effect on colour as much, at least, if not more, than on form. Could colour be made as permanent this might frequently be wise, but too great dependence on it has deprived us of half the knowledge we might otherwise possess of the architectural effects of other times.

CHAPTER III. ASSYRIAN PALACES. — Nineveh. — Nimroud. — Khorsabad. [80] — Palace of Sennacherib, Koyunjik. — Palace of Esarhaddon. — Temples and Tombs.

All the knowledge which we in reality possess regarding the ancient palatial architecture of the Euphrates valley^[77] is derived from the exploration of the palaces erected by the great Assyrian dynasty of Nineveh during the two centuries and a half of its greatest prosperity. Fortunately it is a period regarding the chronology of which there is no doubt, since the discovery of the Assyrian Canon by Sir Henry Rawlinson,^[78] extending up to the year 900 B.C.: this, combined with Ptolemy’s Canon, fixes the date of every king’s reign with almost absolute certainty. It is also a period regarding which we feel more real interest than almost any other in the history of Asia. Almost all the kings of that dynasty carried their conquering arms into Syria, and their names are familiar to us as household words, from the record of their wars in the Bible. It is singularly interesting not only to find these records so completely confirmed, but to be able to study the 169actual works of these very kings, and to analyse their feelings and aspirations from the pictures of their actions and pursuits which they have left on the walls of their palaces.

From the accounts left us by the Greeks we are led to suppose that the palaces of Babylon were superior in beauty and magnificence to those of Nineveh; and, judging from the extent and size of the mounds still remaining there, it is quite possible that such may have been the case; but they are so completely ruined, and have been so long used as quarries, that it is impossible to restore, even in imagination, these now formless masses.

One thing seems nearly certain, which is, that no stone was used in their construction. If, consequently, their portals were adorned with winged bulls or lions, they must have been in stucco. If their walls were covered with scenes of war or the chase, as those of Nineveh, they must have been painted on plaster; so that, though their dimensions may have been most imposing and their splendour dazzling, they must have wanted the solidity and permanent character so essential to true architectural effect.

It is the employment of stone which alone has enabled us to understand the arrangements of the Assyrian palaces. Had not their portals been marked by their colossal genii, we should hardly have known where to look for them; and if the walls of their apartments had not been wainscoted with alabaster slabs, we should never have been able to trace their form with anything like certainty. Practically, all we know of Assyrian art is due to the fact of their having so suitable a material as alabaster close at hand, and to the skill with which they knew how to employ it. Had their walls only been plastered, the mounds of Khorsabad and Nimroud would have remained as mysterious now as they were before Layard and Botta revealed to us their splendours.

Notwithstanding the wonderful results that were achieved in the ten or twelve years during which the Assyrian explorations were pursued with activity, it is by no means impossible but that much more still remains to reward an energetic and skilful research in these mounds. Still, seven palaces have been more or less perfectly exhumed; four at Nimroud, two at Koyunjik, and one at Khorsabad. Among these we have the palaces of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, of Esarhaddon, Sargon, Shalmaneser, and probably of Tiglath Pileser. Consequently the palaces of all the great kings, whose names are so familiar to us, are laid bare. Beyond these, the palace of Asshur-bani-pal worthily commences the series before the kings of Assyria came into contact with the inhabitants of Syria, and consequently before their Biblical record 170begins. It may be that other works of the same kings may be discovered, or the buildings of some less celebrated monarch, but if we do not know all that is to be known, we may rest assured that we already have acquired the greater part of the knowledge that is to be obtained from these explorations.

58. North-West Palace at. Nimroud.^[79] Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The oldest of the buildings hitherto excavated in Assyria is the North-West Palace at Nimroud, built by Asshur-bani-pal, about the year 884 B.C. Though not the largest, it more than makes up for this deficiency by the beauty of its sculptures and the general elegance of its ornaments. As will be seen by the annexed woodcut (No. 58), the excavated portion of the palace is nearly a square, about 330 ft. each way. The principal entrance was on the north, at the head of a noble flight of steps leading from the river to the level of the terrace on which the palace stood. From this, two entrances, adorned with winged bulls, led to a great hall, 152 ft. in length by 32 in width, at the upper end of which was situated the throne, and at the lower a smaller apartment or vestibule opened on the terrace that overlooked 171the river. Within the great hall was one of smaller dimensions, opening into the central court of the palace, the entrance of which was so arranged as to ensure privacy, proving that it partook of the nature of the private apartment or hareem of the palace. To the eastward of this was a suite of apartments, three deep, decreasing in width as they receded from the light, but so arranged that the inner apartments 172must have been entirely dark had the walls been carried to the ceiling. As will, however, be presently explained in describing Khorsabad, it is more than probable that the walls extended to only half the height of the rooms, and formed terraces with dwarf pillars on their summits, between which light was introduced, and they in fact formed the upper storey of the building. To the south was a double suite, apparently the banqueting halls of the palace; and to the westward a fourth suite, more ruined, however, than the rest, owing to its being situated so near the edge of the terrace. As far as can be made out, the rooms on this face seem to have been arranged three deep: the outer opening on the terrace by three portals, the central one of which had winged bulls, but the lateral seem to have been without these ornaments; the whole façade being about 330 ft. in extent, north and south.

59. Plan of Palace at Khorsabad, showing the excavations as they were left by M. Botta. No scale.

All these apartments were lined with sculptured slabs, representing mostly either the regal state of the sovereign, his prowess in war, or amusements during peace, but many of them were wholly devoted to religious subjects. Beyond these apartments were many others, covering at least an equal extent of ground, but their walls having been only plastered and painted, the sun-burnt bricks of which they were built have crumbled again to their original mud. It is evident, however, that they were inferior to those already described, both in form and size, and applied to inferior purposes.

The mound at Nimroud was so much extended after this palace was built, and so covered by subsequent buildings, that it is now impossible to ascertain either the extent or form of this, which is the only palace of the older dynasty known. It will therefore perhaps be as well to turn at once to Khorsabad, which, being built wholly by one king, and not altered afterwards, will give a clearer idea of the position and arrangements of an Assyrian palace than we can obtain from any one on the Nimroud mound. It has besides this the advantage of being the only one so complete and so completely excavated as to enable us to form a correct idea of what an Assyrian palace really was and of all its arrangements.

The city of Khorsabad was situated about fifteen miles from Nineveh, in a northerly direction, and was nearly square in plan, measuring about an English mile each way. Nearly in the centre of the north-western wall was a gap, in which was situated the mound on which the palace stood. It seems to have been a peculiarity common to all 173Assyrian palaces to be so situated. Their builders wisely objected to being surrounded on all sides by houses and walls, and at the same time sought the protection of a walled enclosure to cover the gateways and entrances to their palaces. At Koyunjik and Nimroud the outer face of the palace was covered and protected by the river Tigris; and here the small brook Kausser flows past the fort, and, though now an insignificant stream, it is by no means improbable that it was dammed up so as to form a lake in front of the palace when inhabited. This piece of water may have been further deepened by excavating from it the earth necessary to raise the mound on which the palace stood.

60. Terrace wall at Khorsabad.

That part of the mound in this instance which projected between the walls was a square of about 650 ft. each way, raised about 30 ft. above the level of the plain, and protected on every side by a supporting wall cased with stone of very beautiful masonry (Woodcut No. 60). Behind this, and inside the city, was a somewhat lower mound, about 300 ft. in width and 1300 or 1400 ft. in length, on which were situated the great portals of the palace, together with the stables and offices, and, outside the walls of the palace properly so called, the hareem.

All the principal apartments of the palace properly so called were revêted with sculptural slabs of alabaster, generally about 9 ft. in height, like those at Nimroud; these either represent the wars or the peaceful amusements of King Sargon, commemorate his magnificence, or express his religious feelings.

The great portals that gave access to the palace of Khorsabad from the city were among the most magnificent of those yet discovered. The façade in which they stood presented a frontage of 330 ft., in which were three portals; the central one flanked by great human-headed bulls 19 ft. in height, and on each side two other bulls 15 ft. high, with a giant strangling a lion between them, as shown in the woodcut 174(No. 62), representing what still remained of them when uncovered by M. Botta, and now forming one of the principal ornaments of the British Museum. These portals were reached from the city by a flight of steps, now entirely destroyed, but which there can be little difficulty in restoring from what we find at Persepolis and elsewhere.

61. Plan of Palace at Khorsabad, as completely excavated by M. Place. The parts tinted were actually found. Those in outline are conjectural.

These portals led to the great outer court of the palace, measuring 315 ft. by 280 between the buttresses with which it was adorned all round. On the right hand were six or seven smaller courts surrounded by the stables and outhouses of the palace, which were approached by a ramp on the outside, at the head of which was a block of buildings containing the cellarage, and generally the stores of eatables. On the left hand of this court were the metal stores, each room having been 175appropriated to iron, copper, or other such materials, and behind them, outside the palace, was the hareem.^[81]

In the northern angle, a rather insignificant passage formed a means of communication between this great outer court and the next, which was 360 ft. long by 200 wide, and probably open to the country, at least in front of the great portals. On the inner side of this second court a magnificent portal opened into what appears to have been the residential portion of the palace, measuring nearly 300 by 500 ft. over all.

62. Existing Remains of Propylæa at Khorsabad.

The proper entrance to this court was by the ramp before alluded to, which was indeed the only access to the palace for chariots and horsemen. From the second court, through the only vaulted passage in the palace, access was obtained to the state apartments looking over the country. The three principal of these are shown to a larger scale in the woodcut (No. 63), with their dimensions figured upon them. The next woodcut (No. 64) is a restored section of these apartments, showing what their arrangement was, and the mode in which it is conceived they were roofed, according to the information 176gathered on the spot, and what we find afterwards practised at Persepolis and elsewhere.^[82]

63. Enlarged Plan of the Three Principal Rooms at Khorsabad. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

It will be observed that the area covered by the walls is of nearly the same extent as that of the rooms themselves, so that the galleries formed in fact an upper storey to the palace; and thus, in the heat of the day, the thickness of the walls kept the inner apartments free from heat and glare, while in the evenings and mornings the galleries 179formed airy and light apartments, affording a view over the country, and open on every side to the breezes that at times blow so refreshingly over the plains. It will also be observed that by this arrangement the direct rays of the sun could never penetrate into the halls themselves, and that rain, or even damp, could easily be excluded by means of curtains or screens.

64. Restored Section of Principal Rooms at Khorsabad. 152 ft.

65. Restoration of Northern Angle of Palace Court, Khorsabad. (From a Drawing by the Author.)

The whole of these state-rooms were revêted with sculptured alabaster slabs, as shown in the section; above which the walls were decorated with conventional designs painted on stucco, remains of which were found among the débris.

The external face of this suite, as seen from the north-eastern court, was probably something very like what is shown in the woodcut (No. 66), though there are less materials for restoring the exterior than there are for the internal parts of the palace. The arched entrance to the court, shown on the left, is certain: so also, I conceive, is the mode in which the light was introduced into the apartments. The details of the pillars are not so certain, though not admitting of much latitude of doubt.

As before mentioned, outside the palace stood the hareem, of a somewhat irregular form, but measuring 400 ft. by 280, (on left of plan, woodcut No. 61). The whole of its external walls are adorned with reeded pilasters and panels like those of the Wuswus at Wurka (Woodcut No. 61), which is not the case with any other part of the palace. It has only one small external opening from the terrace, and another, which may be called a concealed one, from the great outer court. Internally its arrangements are very remarkable. First there is an outer court into which these two entrances open, and within that two other courts, on whose side are extended what may be called three complete suites of apartments, very similar to each other in arrangement, though varied in dimensions. It looks as if each was appropriated to a queen, and that their relative magnificence accorded with the dignity of the person to whom it was assigned. But are we justified in assuming that Sargon had three queens, and only that number of legitimate wives? Assuming this, however, there is still room in this hareem for any number of concubines and their attendants.

180The central court of the hareem is one of the richest discoveries that rewarded M. Place’s industry. It was adorned with six free-standing statues—the smaller court with two—and the walls were wainscoted with enamelled tile representing the king, his vizier, lions, eagles, vines and fruits, and other objects in a bright yellow colour on a blue ground. The whole is, in fact, one of the most curious and interesting discoveries yet made in these palaces.

As it can hardly admit of a doubt that this was really the hareem of the palace, it is curious that such a building as the observatory described above (p. 162), should have been erected in its immediate proximity. Every one ascending the ramp or standing on its summit must have looked into its courts, unless they were covered with awnings or roofs in some manner we do not quite understand; and we can hardly assume that such a tower was intended as the praying place of the king and the king only. The fact is undoubted, however we may explain it.

66. City Gateways, Khorsabad. (From M. Place.)

From the above description it will be observed that in every case the principal part, the great mass, of the palace was the terrace on which it stood, which was raised by artificial means to a height of 30 ft. and more, and, as shown in the illustration (Woodcut No. 60), carefully revêted with stone. On this stood the palace, consisting principally of one great block of private apartments situated around an inner square court. From this central mass two or three suites of apartments projected as wings, so arranged as to be open to the air on three sides, and to give great variety to the outline of the palace as seen from below, and great play of light and shade in every aspect under which the building could be surveyed. So far also as we can judge, the whole arrangements were admirably adapted to the climate, and the ornaments not only elegant in themselves, but singularly expressive and appropriate to the situations in which they are found.

Another most important discovery of M. Place is that of the great 181arched gates of the city. These were apparently always constructed in pairs—one for the use of foot-passengers, the other for wheeled carriages, as shown by the marks of wheels worn into the pavement in the one case, while it is perfectly smooth in the other.

Those appropriated to carriages had plain jambs rising perpendicularly 12 or 15 ft. These supported a semicircular arch, 18 ft. in diameter, adorned on its face with an archivolt of great beauty, formed of blue enamelled bricks, with a pattern of figures and stars of a warm yellow colour, relieved upon it.

67. City Gateway at Khorsabad. (From M. Place.)

The gateways for foot-passengers were nearly of the same dimensions, about 14 or 15 ft. broad, but they were ornamented by winged bulls with human heads, between which stood giants strangling lions. In the example illustrated in the annexed woodcut (No. 67), the arch sprang directly from the backs of the bulls, and was ornamented by an archivolt similar to that over the carriage entrances, and which is perhaps as beautiful a mode of ornamenting an arch as is to be found anywhere.

Other arches have been found in these Assyrian excavations, but none of such extent as these, and none which show more completely how well the Assyrians in the time of Sargon (721 B.C.) understood 182not only the construction of the arch, but also its use as a decorative architectural feature.^[83]

68. Interior of a Yezidi House at Bukra, in the Sinjar.

There must always be many points, even in royal residences, which would be more easily understood if we knew the domestic manners and usages prevalent among the common people of the same era and country. This knowledge we actually can supply in the present case, to a great extent, from modern Eastern residences. Such a mode of illustration in the West would be out of the question; but in the East, manners and customs, processes of manufacture and forms of building, have existed unchanged from the earliest times to the present day. This immutability is the greatest charm of the East, and frequently enables us to understand what in our own land would have utterly faded away and been obliterated. In the Yezidi house, for instance, borrowed from Mr. Layard’s work, we see an exact reproduction, in every essential respect, of the style of building in the days of Sennacherib. Here we have the wooden pillars with bracket capitals, supporting a mass of timber intended to be covered with a thickness 183of earth sufficient to prevent the rain or heat from penetrating to the dwelling. There is no reason to doubt that the houses of the humbler classes were in former times similar to that here represented; and this very form amplified into a palace, and the walls and pillars ornamented and carved, would exactly correspond with the principal features of the palace of the great Assyrian king.

Having said so much of Khorsabad, it will not be necessary to say much about the palace at Koyunjik, built by Sennacherib, the son of the Khorsabad king.

As the great metropolitan palace of Nineveh, it was of course of far greater extent and far more magnificent than the suburban palace of his father. The mound itself on which it stands is about 11⁄2 mile in circumference (7800 ft.); and, as the whole was raised artificially to the height of not less than 30 ft., it is in itself a work of no mean magnitude.

The principal palace stood at the south-western angle of this mound, and as far as the excavation has been carried seems to have formed a square of about 600 ft. each way—double the lineal dimensions of that at Nimroud. Its general arrangements were very similar to those at Khorsabad, but on a larger scale. It enclosed within itself two or three great internal courts, surrounded with sixty or seventy apartments, some of great extent. The principal façade, facing the east, surpassed any of those of Khorsabad, both in size and magnificence, being adorned by ten winged bulls of the largest dimensions, with a giant between each of the two principal external ones, in the manner shown in the woodcut (No. 62), besides smaller sculptures—the whole extending to a length of not less than 350 ft. The principal façade at Khorsabad, as above mentioned, extended 330 ft., but the bulls and the portals there were to those at Koyunjik in the proportion of 30 to 40, which nearly indeed expresses the relative magnificence of the two palaces. Inside the great portal at Koyunjik was a hall, 180 ft. in length by 42 in width, with a recess at each end, through which access was obtained to two courtyards, one on the right and one on the left; and beyond these to the other and apparently the more private apartments of the palace, which overlooked the country and the river Tigris, flowing to the westward of the palace—the principal entrance, as at Khorsabad, being from the city.^[84]

184It is impossible, of course, to say how much further the palace extended, though it is probable that nearly all the apartments which were revêted with sculptures have been laid open; but what has been excavated occupies so small a portion of the mound that it is impossible to be unimpressed with the conviction that it forms but a very small fraction of the imperial palace of Nineveh. Judging even from what has as yet been uncovered, it is, of all the buildings of antiquity, alone surpassed in magnitude by the great palace-temple at Karnac; and when we consider the vastness of the mound on which it was raised, and the richness of the ornaments with which it was adorned, a doubt arises whether it was not as great, or at least as expensive, a work as the great palace-temples of Thebes. The latter, however, were built with far higher motives, and designed to last through ages, while the palace at Nineveh was built only to gratify the barbaric pride of a wealthy and sensual monarch, and perished with the ephemeral dynasty to which he belonged.

Another Assyrian palace, of which considerable remains still exist, is that of Esarhaddon, commonly known as the South-west Palace at Nimroud. Like the others, this too has been destroyed by fire, and the only part that remains sufficiently entire to be described is the entrance or southern hall. Its general dimensions are 165 ft. in length by 62 ft. in width, and it consequently is the largest hall yet found in Assyria. The architects, however, either from constructive necessities or for purposes of state, divided it down the centre by a wall supporting dwarf columns,^[85] forming a central gallery, to which access was had by bridge galleries at both ends, a mode of arrangement capable of great variety and picturesqueness of effect, and of which there is little doubt that the builders availed themselves to the fullest extent. This led into a courtyard of considerable dimensions, surrounded by apartments, but they are all too much destroyed by fire to be intelligible.

69. Hall of South-West Palace. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Another great palace, built, as appears from the inscriptions, by a son of Esarhaddon, has been discovered nearly in the centre of the mound at Koyunjik. Its terrace-wall has been explored for nearly 300 ft. in two directions from the angle near 185which the principal entrance is placed. This is on a level 20 ft. lower than the palace itself, which is reached by an inclined passage nearly 200 ft. in length, adorned with sculpture on both sides. The palace itself, as far as its exploration has been carried, appears similar in its arrangements to those already described; but the sculptures with which it is adorned are more minute and delicate, and show a more perfect imitation of nature, than the earlier examples, though inferior to them in grandeur of conception and breadth of design.

70. Central Palace, Koyunjik. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The architectural details also display a degree of elegance and an amount of elaborate finish not usually found in the earlier examples, as is well illustrated by the Woodcut No. 71, representing one of the pavement slabs of the palace. It is of the same design, and similarly ornamented, but the finish is better, and the execution more elaborate, than in any of the more ancient examples we are acquainted with.

Besides these, there were on the mound at Nimroud a central palace built by Tiglath Pileser, and one at the south-eastern angle of the mound, built by a grandson of Esarhaddon; but both are too much ruined for its being feasible to trace either their form or extent. 186Around the great pyramid, at the north-west angle of the mound, were buildings more resembling temples than any others on it—all the sculptures upon them pointing apparently to devotional purposes, though in form they differed but little from the palaces. At the same time there is certainly nothing in them to indicate that the mound at the base of which they were situated was appropriated to the dead, or to funereal purposes. Between the north-west and south-west palaces there was also raised a terrace higher than the rest, on which were situated some chambers, the use of which it is not easy to determine.

71. Pavement Slab from the Central Palace, Koyunjik.

Notwithstanding the impossibility that now exists of making out all the details of the buildings situated on the great mounds of Nimroud and Koyunjik, it is evident that these great groups of buildings must have ranked among the most splendid monuments of antiquity, surrounded as they were by stone-faced terraces, and approached on every side by noble flights of stairs. When all the palaces with their towers and temples were seen gay with colour, and crowded with all the state and splendour of an Eastern monarch, they must have formed a scene of such dazzling magnificence that one can easily comprehend how the inhabitants of the little cities of Greece or Judea were betrayed into such extravagant hyperbole when speaking of the size and splendour of the great cities of Assyria.

72. Pavilion, from the Sculptures at Khorsabad.

The worst feature of all this splendour was its ephemeral character—though 187perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much about it—for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains would probably have been applied to other purposes long ago; but having been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The pillars that supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth, and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone suffice to bury the building up to the height of the sculptures. The gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their unprotected exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this: so that it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been growing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting positions not to be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries of mud-hut building would complete the process of entombment so completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the 188centuries during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great nations of antiquity.

73. Assyrian Temple, North Palace, Koyunjik. (From Rawlinson.)

74. Bas-relief, representing façade of Assyrian Palace. (From British Museum.)

It is by no means improbable that at some future period we may be able to restore much that is now unintelligible, from the representations of buildings on the sculptures, and to complete our account of their style of architecture from illustrations drawn by the Assyrians themselves. One or two of these have already been published. The annexed woodcut, for instance (No. 72), of a bas-relief representing a little fishing-pavilion on the water’s edge, exhibits in a rude manner all the parts of an Assyrian order with its entablature, and the capital only requires to be slightly elongated to make it similar to those found at Persepolis.

189Another from the North Palace, Koyunjik, repeats the same arrangement, with pillars which must be considered as early examples of the Corinthian order, and, if we may trust the drawing, it likewise represents an aqueduct with horizontally constructed arches of pointed form.

A third representation (No. 74) from the same palace seems intended to portray a complete palace façade, with its winged bulls in the entrance and its colossal lions on the front. Above these animals, but not apparently meant to be represented as resting on them, are pillars in antis, as in the two previous illustrations.^[86] Unfortunately the cornice is broken away, and the whole is more carelessly executed than is usual in these sculptures.

75. Exterior of a Palace, from a Bas-relief at Koyunjik.

Another curious representation (Woodcut No. 75) is that of a palace of two storeys, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik, showing a range of openings under the roof in both storeys, each opening being divided into three parts by two Ionic columns between square piers, and are probably meant to represent such an arrangement as that shown in Woodcuts Nos. 72 and 73. On the right the upper storey is a correct representation of the panelled style of ornamentation above alluded to as recently discovered at Khorsabad and elsewhere, and which we 190know from recent discoveries to have been so favourite a mode of decorating walls in that age.

The most remarkable fact, however, that we gather from all these illustrations is, that the favourite arrangement was a group of pillars “distyle in antis,” as it is technically termed, viz., two circular pillars between two square piers. It is frequently found elsewhere in the façade of tombs, but here it seems to have been repeated over and over again to make up a complete design. For a temple such an arrangement would have been inadmissible: for a palace it seems singularly appropriate and elegant.

76. King’s Tent. (From Bas-relief, British Museum.)

Further comparisons will no doubt do much to complete the subject; and when the names written over these bas-reliefs are definitively deciphered, we may find that we really possess contemporary representations, if not of Jerusalem, at least of Lachish, of Susa, and other cities familiar to us both from ancient and from modern history.

77. Horse-Tent (Nimroud).

We have no representation of the dwellings of private individuals so complete as to enable us to understand them, but there are several of royal camps which are interesting. Among the most curious of these are the representations of the tents of the king and his nobles. One of these is shown in Woodcut No. 76, though how it was constructed is by no means clear. It seems to have been open in the centre to the air, but covered at either end by a sort of hood so arranged as to catch the passing breeze, and afford protection from rain at the same time. The annexed woodcut (No. 77), representing the front and one side of the royal horse-tent, gives a good idea of the luxury and elegance that was carried into the detail even of subordinate structures.

Except the Chaldean-formed temples, which have been described in the previous chapter, there are no religious edifices sufficiently complete to enable us to form a distinct idea of what the architectural arrangements of these temples were. As belonging to a Semitic people we should expect them to be few and insignificant.

So little remains of the temple at Khorsabad, that it is difficult to say what its original form may have been; the terrace, however, which supported it is interesting, as it shows almost the only instance of a perfect Assyrian moulding or cornice betraying a similarity to the forms of Egyptian architecture which we do not find elsewhere. The curve, however, is not exactly that of an Egyptian cornice, being continued beyond the vertical tangent; but this may have arisen from the terrace being only six feet in height, which placed the curve below the line of sight, and so required a different treatment from one placed so high above it as is usually the case in Egypt.

78. Elevation of Stylobate of temple.

79. Section of Stylobate of Temple.

The bas-relief on the next page is perhaps the best sculptured representation that exists of what we might fancy an Assyrian temple to have been. The emblem so enshrined is probably the Asheerah, or grove, to the worship of which the Israelites at all times showed such a tendency to relapse, and is one of the most frequent objects of adoration among the Assyrians.

As a Semitic people we should hardly expect to find any tombs among them, and indeed, unless the pyramid at the north-west angle of the Nimroud mound is the tomb of Sardanapalus, mentioned by the Greeks,^[87] it is not clear that a single Assyrian sepulchre has yet been discovered. Those that crowd and choke the ruins of Wurka and Mugheyr and other cities of Babylonia are the remains of a Turanian people who always respected their dead, and paid especial attention to the preservation of their bodies. The pyramid at Nimroud seems to have been explored with sufficient care to enable us to affirm that no stairs or inclined plane led to its summit, and without these it certainly was not one of those observatory temples before alluded to. Still, it is so singular to have one monument, and one only, of its class, that it is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion on the subject.

It stands at the north-west angle of the mound, and measures 192167 ft. each way; its base, 30 ft. in height, is composed of beautiful stone masonry, ornamented by buttresses and offsets, above which the wall was continued perpendicularly in brickwork. In the centre of the building, and on the level of the base or terrace, a long vaulted gallery or tunnel was discovered, but it contained no clue to the destination of the building.

80. Sacred Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians. (From Lord Aberdeen’s Black Stone.)

81. Obelisk of Divanubara. (From Layard’s ‘Nineveh.’)

193The whole now rises to a height of about 120 ft. from the plain, and is composed of sun-dried bricks, with courses of kiln-burnt bricks between them, at certain intervals towards the summit, which render it probable that it originally was not a pyramid in the usual sense of the term, but a square tower, rising in three or four storeys, each less than the lower one, as in the traditional temple of Belus at Babylon, or like the summit of the obelisk represented in the woodcut (No. 81), which most probably is a monolithic reproduction of such a sepulchral tower as this, rather than an obelisk like those of Egypt.

Other obelisks have since been discovered, some of which look even more like miniature models of structural buildings than this one does.

Till further information is obtained, it will hardly be possible to say much that is satisfactory with regard to either the tombs, temples, or minor antiquities of the Assyrian people. Their architecture was essentially Palatial—as that of the Greeks was Templar—and to that alone our remarks might almost be confined. Fortunately, however, sculpture was another art to which they were specially addicted, and to their passion for this we owe most of our knowledge of their manners and customs. To this art also we are indebted for our ability to restore many details of their palaces and buildings, which without its aid would have been altogether unintelligible.

Judged by the same rules of criticism which we apply to Classic or Mediæval art, the architecture of the Assyrians must, it is feared, rank very low. But for gorgeous Barbaric splendour of effect it seems difficult to imagine anything that could well have been grander or more imposing than the palaces of Nineveh must have been when entire and filled with the state and magnificence of the monarchs of the Assyrian empire.

CHAPTER IV. PERSIA. — Pasargadæ. — Persepolis. — Susa. — Fire Temples. — Tombs.

There still remains a third chapter to write before the survey of the architecture of the central region of Asia is complete—before indeed a great deal which has just been assumed can become capable of proof. By a fortunate accident the Persians used stone where the Assyrians used only wood, and consequently many details of their architecture have come down to our day which would otherwise have passed away had the more perishable materials of their predecessors been made use of.

Whatever else the ancient world may owe to the learning of the Egyptians, it seems certain that they were the first to make use of stone as a constructive building material. As before mentioned, the Egyptians used a stone Proto-Doric pillar at least 1000 years before the Greeks or the Etruscans, or any other ancient people we know of, dreamt of such a thing. The Babylonians and Assyrians never seem to have used stone constructively, except as the revêtement of a terrace wall; and it was not till after the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses that we find any Asiatic nations using a pillar of stone in architecture, or doing more than building a wall, or heaping mass on mass of this material without any constructive contrivance. The Indians first learned this art from the Bactrian Greeks, and many civilised Asiatic nations still prefer wood for their palaces and temples, as the Assyrians did, and only use stone as “a heap.” It must have been difficult, however, for any intelligent people to visit the wonderful stone temples of Thebes and Memphis without being struck by their superior magnificence and durability; and we consequently find the Persians on their return, though reproducing their old forms, adopting the new material, which, fortunately for them and for our history, was found in abundance in the neighbourhood of their capitals.

Even, however, on the most cursory inspection, it is easy to see how little the arts of the Assyrians were changed by their successors. 195The winged lions and bulls that adorn the portals at Persepolis are practically identical with those of Nineveh. The representations of the king on his throne with his attendants are so similar, that but for the locality it would require considerable knowledge to discriminate between Sennacherib and Xerxes. The long procession of tribute bearers—the symbolical animals slain by the king; the whole ornamentation, in fact, is so slightly altered from what existed in Assyria, that we are startled to find how little change in these sculptures the new dynasty had introduced; and if this is the case with them, and their position and arrangement are nearly identical, we may feel very certain that the architecture was also the same.

It appears at first sight to have been otherwise; but on closer examination it appears quite certain that this even is due more to the material employed than to any alteration in form. Something may be due to the fact that the buildings we now find on the platform at Persepolis may have been dedicated to somewhat different purposes than were those of Nineveh; but even this is not quite clear. If the great square courts of the Ninevite palaces were roofed over, as Layard suggested—and as probably was the case—they would exactly represent the square halls of Persepolis. But as all the intermediate buildings of sun-dried brick have been washed off the bare rock by the winter rains of Persia, we can only speculate on what they might have been, without daring to lay too much stress on our convictions.

In their present state the remains at Pasargadæ are, perhaps, more interesting to the antiquary than to the architect, the palaces on the plain being so ruined that their architectural arrangements cannot be understood or restored.

82. Plan of Platform at Pasargadæ.

83. Elevation of Platform at Pasargadæ.

196On the side of a hill overlooking the plain is a platform of masonry (Woodcut No. 82) which originally supported either a temple or fire-altar, but this has now entirely disappeared, and the structure is only remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large dimensions of the stones with which it is built. These are drafted (Woodcut No. 83), not only at their joints but often on their faces, with the same flat sinking as is found in all the Jewish works at Jerusalem, and sometimes in Greek buildings of the best age. Thus an ornament of great beauty and elegance is formed out of what would otherwise be merely a plain mass of masonry.

The tomb of Cyrus has already been referred to (p. 164) as a copy in stone of one of the ziggurats or terrace-temples. But it must be borne in mind that the most celebrated example of this form is as often called the tomb, as the temple of Belus;^[88] and among a Turanian people the tomb and the temple may be considered as one and the same thing. The tomb is surrounded on three sides^[89] by a portico of columns standing 14 feet apart: no stone capitals have been found, but it is probable that the columns carried wooden bracket-capitals to diminish the bearing of the wooden architrave or beam which supported the roof. Beyond the portico there are the traces of a second enclosure 25 feet wide, which, from its width, was probably an open court.

84. Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier’s ‘Arménie et la Perse.’)

On the plain are the remains of buildings, three of which were palaces, and one the ruin of a tomb. The plan of one of them, called the palace of Cyrus, has been measured and published by M. Texier, MM. Flandin & Coste, and M. Dieulafoy, and although the restoration 197given by the latter goes somewhat farther than the remains will account for, there are certain features in which they all agree, and which show that it contained at least two porches or porticoes and a great hall of columns not dissimilar from the examples found at Persepolis. The angle piers or responds of two porticoes still exist in situ; on one of them in the upper stone is cut the socket in which the architrave of the portico rested, the form of this socket having a peculiar value, as it shows more clearly than the socket in the respond of the portico of the palace of Darius, that the Persian architrave was composed of two or more beams placed one over the other, and overhanging, as in the tomb of Darius. A second pier has an inscription which enables us to ascribe its erection to Cyrus. A column, 34 feet high, of the great hall still remains, which shows that at all events in this case the central hall rose above the porticoes, deriving its light therefore through clerestory windows. No capitals have been found,^[90] and it is possible therefore 198they were in wood, as we have suggested may have been the case in the portico of the tomb of Cyrus.

85. Plan of Tomb of Cyrus, Pasargadæ. (From Texier.)

86. Section of Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier.)

To the east of this palace, and distant about 170 yards, are the remains of a second palace with a hall of columns, and measuring 124 by 49 ft., and on the west side of it is the stone jamb of a doorway similar to those at Persepolis, and carved with the well-known bas-relief of Cyrus. The third palace has been excavated by Mr. Weld Blundell, and the foundations of its walls traced, measuring 187 by 131 ft., with a hall of 24 columns.

At Nineveh, as we have seen, all the pillars, the roofs, and the constructive parts of the building, which were of wood,^[91] have disappeared, and left nothing but the massive walls, which, falling and being heaped the one on the other, have buried themselves and their ornaments till the present day. At Persepolis, on the contrary, the brick walls, being thinner and exposed on the bare surface of the naked rock, have been washed away by the storms and rains of 2000 years, leaving only the skeletons of the buildings. In the rocky country of Persia, however, the architect fortunately used stone; and 199we have thus at Persepolis, if the expression may be used, all the bones of the building, but without the flesh; and at Nineveh, the flesh, but without the bones that gave it form and substance.

87. View from top of Great Stairs at Persepolis.

The general appearance of the ruins, as they at present stand, will be seen from the woodcut (No. 87).^[92] The principal mass in the foreground 200on the left is the Propylæa of Xerxes, and behind that and to the right stand the pillars of the Chehil Minar, or Great Hall of Xerxes. Between these are seen in the distance the remains of the smaller halls of Darius and Xerxes.

88. Stairs to Palace of Xerxes.

The most striking features in this view are the staircases that led from the plain to the platform, and from the lower level to that on which the great hall stood. Indeed, among these ruins, nothing is 201more remarkable than these great flights of steps. The builders of those days were, so far as we know, the only people who really understood the value of this feature. The Egyptians seem wholly to have neglected it, and the Greeks to have cared little about it; but it was not so at Nineveh, where, so far as we can understand from the indistinct traces left, the stairs must have been one of the most important parts of the design. But they were so situated that they were not buried when the buildings were ruined, and consequently have been removed. At Jerusalem, too, we read that when the Queen of Sheba saw “the ascent by which Solomon went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.” Indeed, in all the ancient temples and palaces of this district, more attention is paid to this feature than to almost any other; and from their favourable situation on artificial terraces, the builders were enabled to apply their stairs with far more effect than any others in ancient or in modern times.

The lower or great staircase at Persepolis is plain, and without any sculpture, but is built of the most massive Cyclopean masonry, and of great width and very easy acclivity. That in front of the great hall is ornamented with sculpture, in three tiers, representing the people of the land bringing presents and the subject nations tribute, to lay at the feet of the monarch, combined with mythological representations; the whole bearing a very considerable resemblance to the sculptures on the walls of the Assyrian palaces, though the position is different. The arrangement of these stairs, too, is peculiar, none of them being at right angles to the buildings they approach, but all being double, apparently to permit of processions passing the throne, situated in the porches at their summit, without interruption, and without altering the line of march.

One of these flights, leading to the platform of Xerxes’ palace, is shown in the woodcut (No. 88). In arrangement it is like the stairs leading to the great terrace, but very much smaller, and is profusely adorned with sculpture.

The principal apartment in all the buildings situated on the platform is a central square hall, the floor of which is studded with pillars placed equidistant the one from the other. The smallest have 4 pillars, the next 16, then 36, and one has 100 pillars on its floor; but to avoid inventing new names, we may call these respectively, distyle, tetrastyle, hexastyle, and decastyle halls, from their having 2, 4, 6, or 10 pillars on each face of the phalanx, and because that is the number of the pillars in their porticoes when they have any.

The building at the head of the great stairs is a distyle hall, having 4 pillars supporting its roof. On each side of the first public entrance stands a human-headed winged bull, so nearly identical with those found in Assyrian palaces as to leave no doubt of their having the same origin. At the opposite entrance are two bulls without wings, but 202drawn with the same bold, massive proportions which distinguish all the sculptured animals in the palaces of Assyria and Persia. The other, or palace entrance, is destroyed, the foundation only remaining; but this, with the foundations of the walls, leaves no room to doubt that the annexed woodcut (No. 89) is a true representation of its ground-plan.^[93] Nor can it be doubted that this is one of those buildings so frequently mentioned in the Bible as a “gate,” not the door of a city or buildings, but a gate of justice, such as that where Mordecai sat at Susa—where Abraham bought his field—where Ruth’s marriage was judged of—and, indeed, where public business was generally transacted.

89. Propylæa. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

There are three other distyle halls or gates on the platform: one to the westward of this, very much ruined; one in the centre of the whole group, which seems to have had external porticoes; and a third on the platform in front of the palace of Xerxes.

90. Palace of Darius. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

There are two tetrastyle halls, one of which, erected by Darius (woodcut No. 90), is the most interesting of the smaller buildings on the terrace. It is the only building that faces the south, and is approached by a flight of steps, represented with the whole façade of the palace as it now stands in the woodcut (No. 91). These steps led to a tetrastyle porch, two ranges in depth, which opened into the central hall with its 16 columns, around which were arranged smaller rooms or cells, either for the occupation of the king, if it was a palace, or of the priests if a temple. In the western side a staircase and doorway were added, somewhat unsymmetrically, by Artaxerxes.

203These remains would hardly suffice to enable us to restore the external appearance of the palace; but fortunately the same king who built the palace for his use on this mound, repeated it in the rock as an “eternal dwelling” for himself after death. The tomb known as that of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam (woodcut No. 92), is an exact reproduction, not only of the architectural features of the palace, but to the same scale, and in every respect so similar, that it seems impossible to doubt but that the one was intended as a literal copy of the other. Assuming it to be so, we learn what kind of cornice rested on the double bull capitals. And what is still more interesting, we obtain a representation of a prayer platform, which we have described elsewhere as a Talar,^[94] but the meaning of which we should hardly know but for this representation.

The other tetrastyle hall is similar to this, but plainer and somewhat smaller.

91. Façade of Palace of Darius at Persepolis. Scale of 20 ft. to 1 in.

Turning from these to the hexastyle halls, the smallest but most perfect (Woodcut No. 91) is that standing on the 205southern edge of the upper platform, the inscriptions on which certainly prove it to have been built by Xerxes.

92. Tomb of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam, representing the façade of his Palace surmounted by a Talar.

The platform on which it stands is approached by two flights of steps, that on the east being the one represented in the woodcut No. 84,—there are also indications of a tetrastyle hall or gate having existed on its summit,—while that to the west is much simpler. The hall itself had a portico of 12 columns, and on each side a range of smaller apartments, the two principal of which had their roof supported by 4 pillars each.

93. Palace of Xerxes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The building is one of great beauty in itself, but its greatest value is that it enables us to understand the arrangement of the great hall of Xerxes—the Chehil Minar—the most splendid building of which any remains exist in this part of the world. From the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 94) it will be seen that the arrangement of the whole central part is identical with that of the building just described. There can be no possible doubt about this, as the bases of all the 72 columns still exist in situ, as well as the jambs of the two principal doorways, which are shaded darker in the plan. The side and rear walls only are restored from the preceding illustration. The only difference is, that instead of the two distyle halls on either side, this had hexastyle porticoes of 12 pillars each, similar to that in front; the angles between which were in all probability filled up with rooms or buildings, as suggested in the plan.^[95]

206

94. Restored Plan of Great Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Two orders of pillars were employed to support the roof of this splendid building; one, represented in Woodcut No. 91, with double bull capitals, like those of the porch of Darius’s palace. They are 67 ft. 4 in. in height from the floor to the back of the bull’s neck, or 64 ft. to the under side of the beam that lay between the bulls. The other order, with the Ionic volutes (woodcut No. 96), was also that employed in the northern portico, and generally in the interior throughout this building, and is nearly identical, as far as the base and shaft are concerned, except in the height of the latter. The capital, however, differs widely, and is 16 ft. 6 in. in height, making an order altogether 9 ft. 7 in. less than that used externally, the difference being made up by brackets of wood, which supported the beams of the roof, internally at least, though externally the double bull capital probably surmounted these Ionic-like scrolls.

There is no reason to doubt that these halls also had platforms or talars like the smaller halls, which would also serve to shelter any opening in the roof, though in the present instance it seems very 207doubtful if any such openings or skylights existed or were indeed required.

Thus arranged, the section of the buildings would be as shown in the woodcut (No. 97); and presuming this structure to have been sculptured and painted as richly as others of its age and class, which it no doubt was, it must have been not only one of the largest, but one of the most splendid buildings of antiquity. In plan it was a rectangle of about 300 ft. by 350, and consequently covered 105,000 square ft.; it was thus larger than the hypostyle hall at Karnac, or any of the largest temples of Greece or Rome. It is larger, too, than any mediæval cathedral except that of Milan; and although it has neither the stone roof of a cathedral, nor the massiveness of an Egyptian building, still its size and proportions, combined with the lightness of its architecture and the beauty of its decorations, must have made it one of the most beautiful buildings ever erected. Both in design and proportion it far surpassed those of Assyria, and though possessing much of detail or ornament that was almost identical, its arrangement and proportions were so superior in every respect that no similar building in Nineveh can be compared with this, the great architectural creation of the Persian Empire.

95. Pillar of Western Portico.

96. Pillar of Northern Portico.

208There is no octastyle hall at Persepolis, and only one decastyle. In this instance the hall itself measured about 225 ft. each way, and had 100 pillars on its floor; still, it was low in proportion, devoid of lateral porticoes, and consequently by no means so magnificent a building as the great hall of Xerxes. The portico in front was two ranges in depth, and flanked by gigantic bulls; but as the whole height was barely 25 ft., it could not have been a remarkable or pleasing object. The sculptures on the jambs of the doorways are the most interesting part of this building; these represent the king on his throne, and various mythological subjects, on a more extensive scale than those similarly situated in the other buildings of the platform. Indeed, it is probable that in the other palaces these subjects were painted on the internal walls, as was done in those Assyrian halls which were not revêted with slabs. With an appropriateness that cannot be too much praised, sculpture seems always to have been used in parts of the building exposed to atmospheric injury, and, because of the exposure, to have been employed there in preference to painting.

97. Restored Section of Hall of Xerxes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Besides these buildings on the platform there are the remains of several others on the plain, and within the precincts of the town of Istakr is a building still called the Hareem of Jemsheed, and which may in reality have been the residence of the Achæmenian kings. It certainly belongs to their age, and from the irregularity of its form, and its general proportions, looks very much more like a residence, properly so called, than any of the monumental erections on the neighbouring platform of Persepolis.

Looked at from an architectural point of view the principal defect of the interior arrangement, especially of the smaller Persepolitan halls, is that their floor is unnecessarily crowded with pillars. As these had to support only a wooden roof, some might have been dispensed with, or a more artistic arrangement have been adopted. This would no doubt have been done but for the influence of the Assyrian style, in which frequent pillars were indispensable to support the heavy flat roofs, and as they were of timber a greater number were required than would have been the case if of stone. 209Those of wood also looked less cumbersome and less in the way than those made of more durable materials.

It is also a defect that the capitals of the pillars retain at Persepolis so much of the form of their wooden prototypes. In wood such capitals as those depicted (Woodcuts No. 96 or No. 98) would not be offensive. In stone they are clumsy; and the Greeks showed their usual discrimination when they cut away all the volutes but one pair and adopted a stone construction for the entablature.

Notwithstanding these defects, there is a grandeur of conception about the Persepolitan halls which entitles them to our admiration. Their greatest point of interest to the architectural student consists probably in their being examples of a transition from a wooden to a stone style of art, and in their enabling us to complete and understand that art which had been elaborated in the valley of the Euphrates during previous centuries; but which, owing to the perishable nature of the materials employed, has almost wholly passed away, without leaving sufficient traces to enable all its characteristics to be understood or restored.

The explorations of Mr. Loftus at Susa in 1850 laid bare the foundations of a palace almost identical both in plan and dimensions with the Chehil Minar at Persepolis. It was, however, much more completely ruined, the place having long been used as a quarry by the inhabitants of the neighbouring plains, so that now only the bases of the pillars remain in situ, with fragments of the shafts and capitals strewed everywhere about, but no walls or doorways, or other architectural members to enable us to supply what is wanting at Persepolis.

98. Restored Elevation of Capital at Susa. (From Loftus.)

The bases seem to be of the same form and style as those at Persepolis, but rather more richly carved. The capitals are also more elaborate, but more essentially wooden in their form, and betray their origin not only in the exuberance of their carving but also in the disproportion of the capital to the shaft. In wood so large a capital does not look disproportioned to so slender a shaft; in stone the effect is most disagreeable, and was to a certain extent remedied at Persepolis so soon as the result was perceived. Whether the Persians would ever have been able to shake off entirely the wooden original is not quite clear, but the Greeks, being bound 210by no such association, cut the knot at once, and saved them the trouble.

99. Frieze of Archers.

In 1885, M. Marcel Dieulafoy turned his attention to the excavations as left by Loftus, and conceiving the idea that the principal entrance should be sought for on the south side of the palace, he cut his trenches in a north-east direction and discovered the traces of the walls enclosing the court in front of the palace. These walls were faced with enamelled beton blocks. Portions of these enamels had disappeared, but sufficient remained, as the walls had fallen on their faces, to allow of their being placed in their relative positions. From these fragments M. Dieulafoy was able to put together a frieze of lions not dissimilar to those found in the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, with decorative borders above and below, the whole crowned by a battlement, also in enamelled colours. The lower portion of the wall was covered with unglazed bricks of two colours, red and white, arranged in diaper patterns. Continuing the trench, M. Dieulafoy discovered the great staircase placed at the south side of the 211tumulus, a staircase of even greater dimensions than the well-known example of Persepolis. Mr. Loftus’s researches had already proved that the palace consisted of a central hall of thirty-six columns, with three porticoes of twelve columns, similar, therefore, to the great hall of Xerxes. M. Dieulafoy’s discoveries have shown that the central hall was enclosed with a wall, thus confirming the late Mr. Fergusson’s theory as to the restoration of the palace of Xerxes (see p. 206). On the east side leading to the royal entrance of the great hall, M. Dieulafoy discovered the remains of the great frieze of archers (Woodcut No. 99), now in the Louvre; these were executed in bright enamelled colours on beton bricks. The figures, which are about 5 ft. in height, are modelled in low relief, arrayed in processional order, each man grasping a lance in his hand and carrying, slung on his shoulder, a bow and quiver full of arrows. The shape of each man’s dress is the same, but the colours and patterns alternate; in one case the dress is studded with rosettes, in the other with squares containing the earliest heraldic device known, a representation of three towers on a hill.

These enamels, as also those of the lions and of fragments of the crenelated staircase, are now all in the Louvre, and retain sufficient of their pristine effect to suggest a scheme of colour and of decorative treatment of the greatest beauty.^[96] The inscriptions round the bases of the pillars had already informed us that the hall was erected by Darius and Xerxes, but repaired and restored by Artaxerxes Mnemon, who added the inscriptions. This has been confirmed by another inscription under the lions on the pylons; these M. Dieulafoy attributes to Xerxes, as fragments of enamelled bricks of burnt clay, and not beton, and therefore of an earlier building, have been utilised as a filling-in. In all probability the hall of this palace is the identical hall in which the scenes described in the Book of Esther took place. The foundations of other parts of this palace might be no doubt laid bare by further excavations; but the ruin of the place has been so complete, that little of interest in an architectural point of view can be looked for. Below these Persian ruins are probably buried the remains of long-preceding dynasties, which deeper excavations would lay bare, and which would in all probability afford a rich harvest to the historical explorer.

Near the town of Istakr, and opposite the tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam, stands a small tower-like building, represented in Woodcut No. 100. The lower part is solid; the upper contains a small square apartment, roofed by two great flat slabs of stone. Access to this chamber is obtained by a doorway situated at some distance from the ground.

Both the traditions of the place and the knowledge we have of their religious practices point to this as one of the fire temples of the ancient Persians. Its roof is internally still black, probably with the smoke of ancient fires, and though simple and insignificant as an architectural monument, it is interesting as the only form of a temple apart from regal state which the ancient Persians possessed.

100. Khabah at Istakr. No scale.

Another, almost identical in form, is found at Pasargadæ,^[97] and a third exists (according to Stolze) near Maubandajan, at the foot of the Kuh Pir-i-mard, eleven miles to east of Fasa. Perrot suggests it may have been the tomb of Hytaspes, father of Darius. The celebrated Kaabah at Mecca, to which all the Moslem world now bow in prayer, is probably a fourth, while the temple represented in Woodcut No. 81, from Lord Aberdeen’s Black Stone, may be a representation of such a structure as these, with its curtains and paraphernalia complete. It is too evident, however, that the Persians were not a temple-building people,^[98] and the examples that have come down to our time are too few and too insignificant on which to found any theory.

Little requires to be said of the tombs of the Persians; that of Darius is represented in plan and elevation in Woodcut No. 92, and, as before remarked, it is a literal copy on the rock of the façade of his palace. Internally, three small cells contained the remains of the king, with those of the persons, probably his favourite wife or wives 213for whom he had destined that honour. Close by this, at Naksh-i-Rustam, are four others, and in the rock behind Persepolis are three more tombs of the Achæmenian kings, identical with these in all essential respects; but still with such a difference in workmanship and detail as would enable a careful architectural student easily to detect a sequence, and so affix to each, approximately at least, the name of the king whose sepulchre it is. Unfortunately, that of Darius only is inscribed; but his position in the dynasty is so well known, that, starting from that point, it would be easy to assign each of these tombs to the king who excavated it for his own resting-place.

Although these tombs of the Achæmenians are not remarkable for their magnificence, they are interesting in an architectural point of view, inasmuch as—as pointed out above—they enable us to restore their structural buildings in a manner we would hardly be able to do without their assistance. They are also interesting ethnographically as indicating that these kings of Persia were far from being the pure Aryans the language of their inscriptions would lead us to suspect they might be. There are not, so far as is yet known, any series of rock-cut sepulchres belonging to any dynasty of pure Aryan blood. Nor would any king of Semitic race attempt anything of the sort. Their evidence, therefore, as far as it goes—and it is tolerably distinct—seems to prove that the Achæmenian kings were of Turanian race. They only, and not any of their subjects in Persia, seem to have adopted this style of grandeur, which, as we shall presently see, was common in Asia Minor, and other countries subject to their sway, but who were of a different race altogether.

CHAPTER V. INVENTION OF THE ARCH.

Before leaving this early section of architecture, it may be as well briefly to refer to the invention of the true arch, regarding which considerable misconception still exists.

It is generally supposed that the Egyptians were ignorant of the true principles of the arch, and only employed two stones meeting one another at a certain angle in the centre when they wished to cover a larger space than could conveniently be done by a single block. This, however, seems to be a mistake, as many of the tombs and chambers around the pyramids and the temples at Thebes are roofed by stone and brick arches of a semicircular form, and perfect in every respect as far as the principles of the arch are concerned.

Several of these have been drawn by Lepsius, and are engraved in his work; but, as no text accompanies them, and the drawings are not on a sufficient scale to make out the hieroglyphics, where any exist, their date cannot now be ascertained. Consequently, these examples cannot yet be used as the foundation of any argument on the subject, though the curved form of the roofs in the Third Pyramid would alone be sufficient to render it more than probable that during the period of the 4th dynasty the Egyptians were familiar with this expedient.^[99]

At Beni-Hasan, during the time of the 12th dynasty, curvilinear forms reappear in the roofs (Woodcut No. 16), used in such a manner as to render it almost certain that they are copied from roofs of arcuate construction. Behind the Rameseum at Thebes there are a series of arches in brick, which seem undoubtedly to belong to the same age as the building itself; and Sir G. Wilkinson mentions a tomb at Thebes, the roof of which is vaulted with bricks, and still bears the name of Amenoph I., of the 18th dynasty.^[100]

The temple at Abydus, erected by Rameses II., shows the same peculiarity as the tombs at Beni-Hasan, of a flat segmental arch thrown across between the stone architraves. In this instance it is also a copy in stone, but such as must have been originally copied from 215one of brick construction. There is also every reason to believe that the apartments of the little pavilion at Medeenet Habû (Woodcuts Nos. 32 and 33) were covered with semicircular vaults, though these have now disappeared.^[101]

In Ethiopia Mr. Hoskins found stone arches vaulting the roofs of the porches to the pyramids, perfect in construction, and, what is still more singular, showing both circular and pointed forms (Woodcut No. 105). These, as before remarked, are probably of the time of Tirhakah, or at all events not earlier than the age of Solomon, nor later than that of Cambyses.

101. Section of Tomb near the Pyramids of Gizeh.

In the age of Psammeticus we have several stone arches in the neighbourhood of the pyramids; one, in a tomb at Sakkara, has been frequently drawn; but one of the most instructive is that in a tomb discovered by Colonel Campbell (Woodcut No. 101), showing a very primitive form of an arch composed of 3 stones only, and above which is another arch of regular construction of 4 courses. In his researches at Nimroud, Layard discovered vaulted drains and chambers below the north-west and south-east edifices, which were consequently as old as the 8th or 9th century before our era, and contemporary with those in the pyramids of Meroë. They were of both circular and pointed forms, and built apparently with great care and attention to the principles of the arch (Woodcut No. 102).

102. Vaulted Drain beneath the South-East Palace at Nimroud.

The great discovery of this class is that of the city gates at Khorsabad, which, as mentioned at p. 181, were spanned by arches of semicircular form, so perfect both in construction 216and in the mode in which they were ornamented, as to prove that in the time of Sargon the arch was a usual and well-understood building expedient, and one consequently which we may fairly assume to have been long in use.

103. Arch at Dêr-el-Bahree. (Lepsius.)

On the other hand, we have in the temple at Dêr-el-Bahree in Thebes, built by Thothmes III., a curious example of the retention of the old form, when at first sight it would appear as though the true arch would have been a more correct expedient. In this example, the lower arch is composed of stones bracketing forward horizontally, though the form of the arch is semicircular; and above this is a discharging arch of two stones used as in the Pyramids. The upper arch is so arranged as to relieve the crown of the lower—which is its weakest part—of all weight, and at the same time to throw the whole pressure on the outer ends of the arch stones, exactly where it is wanted. The whole thus becomes constructively perfect, though it is a more expensive way of attaining the end desired than by an arch.

The truth seems to be, the Egyptians had not at this age invented voussoirs deeper in the direction of the radii of the arch than in that of its perimeter; and the arch with them was consequently not generally an appropriate mode of roofing. It was the Romans with their tiles who first really understood the true employment of the arch.

So far as we can now understand from the discoveries that have been made, it seems that the Assyrians used the pointed arch for tunnels, aqueducts, and generally for underground work where they feared great superincumbent pressure on the apex, and the round arch above-ground where that was not to be dreaded; and in this they probably showed more science and discrimination than we do in such works.

104. Arch of the Cloaca Maxima, Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

In Europe the oldest arch is probably that of Cloaca Maxima at Rome, constructed under the early kings. It is of stone in 3 rims, and shows as perfect a knowledge of the principle as any subsequent example. Its lasting uninjured to the present day proves how well the art was then understood, and, by inference, how long it must have been practised before reaching that degree of perfection.

From all this it becomes almost certain that the arch was used as 217early as the times of the pyramid-builders of the 4th dynasty, and was copied in the tombs of Beni-Hasan in the 12th; though it may be that the earliest existing example cannot be dated further back than the first kings of the 18th dynasty; from that time, however, there can be no doubt that it was currently used, not only in Egypt, but also in Ethiopia and Assyria.

It would, indeed, be more difficult to account for the fact of such perfect builders as the Egyptians being ignorant of the arch if such were the case; though, at the same time, it is easy to understand why they should use it so sparingly, as they did in their monumental erections.

Even in the simplest arch, that formed of only two stones, such as is frequently found in the pyramids, and over the highest chamber (Woodcut No. 8), it will be evident that any weight placed on the apex has a tendency to lower the summit, and press the lower ends of the stones outwards. Where there was the whole mass of the pyramid to abut against, this was of no consequence, but in a slighter building it would have thrust the walls apart, and brought on inevitable ruin.

The introduction of a third stone, as in the arch (Woodcut No. 101), hardly remedied this at all, the central stone acting like a wedge to thrust the two others apart; and even the introduction of 2 more stones, making 5, as in Woodcut No. 105, only distributed the pressure without remedying the defect; and without the most perfect masonry every additional joint was only an additional source of weakness.

105. Arches in the Pyramids at Meroë. (From Hoskins.)

This has been felt by the architects of all ages and in all countries: still, the advantage of being able to cover large spaces with small stones or bricks is so great, that many have been willing to run the risk; and all the ingenuity of the Gothic architects of the Middle Ages was applied to overcoming the difficulty. But even the best of their buildings are unstable from this cause, and require constant care and attention to keep them from falling.

The Indian architects have fallen into the other extreme, refusing to use the arch under any circumstances, and preferring the smallest dimensions and the most crowded interiors, to adopting what they consider so destructive an expedient. As mentioned in the Introduction (page 22), their theory is that “an arch never sleeps,” and is constantly tending to tear a building to pieces: and, where aided by earthquakes and the roots of trees, there is only too much truth in their belief.

The Egyptians seem to have followed a middle course, using arches either in tombs, where the rock formed an immovable abutment; or 218in pyramids and buildings, where the mass immensely overpowered the thrust; or underground, where the superincumbent earth prevented movement.

They seem also to have used flat segmental arches of brickwork between the rows of massive architraves which they placed on their pillars; and as all these abutted one another, like the arches of a bridge, except the external ones, which were sufficiently supported by the massive walls, the mode of construction was a sound one. This is exactly that which we have re-introduced during the last 30 years, in consequence of the application of cast-iron beams, between which flat segmental arches of brick are thrown, when we desire to introduce a more solid and fire-proof construction than is possible with wood only.

In their use of the arch, as in everything else, the building science of the Egyptians seems to have been governed by the soundest principles and the most perfect knowledge of what was judicious and expedient, and what should be avoided. Many of their smaller edifices have no doubt perished from the scarcity of wood forcing the builders to employ brick arches, but they wisely avoided the use of these in all their larger monuments—in all, in fact, which they wished should endure to the latest posterity.

CHAPTER VI. JUDEA. — Temple of Jerusalem.

The Jews, like the other Semitic races, were not a building people, and never aspired to monumental magnificence as a mode of perpetuating the memory of their greatness. The palace of Solomon was wholly of cedar wood, and must have perished of natural decay in a few centuries, if it escaped fire and other accidents incident to such temporary structures. Their first temple was a tent, their second depended almost entirely on its metallic ornaments for its splendour, and it was not till the Greeks and Romans taught them how to apply stone and stone carving for this purpose that we have anything that can be called architecture in the true sense of the term.

This deficiency of monuments is, however, by no means peculiar to the Jewish people. As before observed, we should know hardly anything of the architecture of Assyria but for the existence of the wainscot slabs of their palaces, though they were nearly a purely Semitic people, but their art rested on a Turanian basis. Neither Tyre nor Sidon have left us a single monument; nor Utica nor Carthage one vestige that dates anterior to the Roman period. What is found at Jerusalem, at Baalbec, at Palmyra, or Petra, even in the countries beyond the Jordan, is all Roman. What little traces of Phœnician art are picked up in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean are copies, with Egyptian or Grecian details, badly and unintelligently copied, and showing a want of appreciation of the first principles of art that is remarkable in that age. It is therefore an immense gain if by our knowledge of Assyrian art we are enabled, even in a moderate degree, to realise the form of buildings which have long ceased to exist, and are only known to us from verbal descriptions.

106. Diagram Plan of Solomon’s Palace. Scale of 100 ft. to 1 in.

The most celebrated secular building of the Jews was the palace which Solomon was occupied in building during the thirteen years 220which followed his completion of the Temple. As not one vestige of this celebrated building remains, and even its site is a matter of dispute, the annexed plan must be taken only as an attempt to apply the knowledge we have acquired in Assyria and Judea to the elucidation of the descriptions of the Bible and Josephus,^[102] and as such may 221be considered of sufficient interest to deserve a place in the History of Architecture.

The principal apartment here, as in all Eastern palaces, was the great audience hall, in this instance 150 feet in length by 75 in width; the roof composed of cedar, and, like the Ninevite palaces, supported by rows of cedar pillars on the floor. According to Josephus, who, however, never saw it, and had evidently the Roman Stoa Basilica of the Temple in his eye, the section would probably have been as shown in diagram A. But the contemporary Bible narrative, which is the real authority, would almost certainly point to something more like the Diagram B in the annexed woodcut.

107. Diagram Sections of the House of the Cedars of Lebanon.

Next in importance to this was the Porch, which was the audience or reception hall, attached to the private apartments; these two being the Dewanni Aum and Dewanni Khas of Eastern palaces, at this day. The Hall of Judgment we may venture to restore with confidence, from what we find at Persepolis and Khorsabad; and the courts are arranged in the diagram as they were found in Ninevite palaces. They are proportioned, so far as we can now judge, to those parts of which the dimensions are given by the authorities, and to the best estimate we can now make of what would be most suitable to Solomon’s state, and to such a capital as Jerusalem was at that time.

From Josephus we learn that Solomon built the walls of this palace “with stones 10 cubits in length, and wainscoted them with stones that were sawed and were of great value, such as are dug out of the earth for the ornaments of temples and the adornment of palaces.”^[103] These were ornamented with sculptures in three rows, but the fourth or upper row was the most remarkable, being covered with foliage in relief, of the most exquisite workmanship; above this the walls were plastered and ornamented with paintings in colour: all of which is the exact counterpart of what we find at Nineveh.

From the knowledge we now possess of Assyrian palaces it might indeed be possible to restore this building with fairly approximate 222correctness, but it would hardly be worth while to attempt this except in a work especially devoted to Jewish art. For the present it must suffice to know that the affinities of the architecture of Solomon’s age were certainly Assyrian; and from our knowledge of the one we may pretty accurately realise the form of the other.

Although not one stone remains upon another of the celebrated Temple of Jerusalem, still, the descriptions in the Bible and Josephus are so precise, that now that we are able to interpret them by the light of other buildings, its history can be written with very tolerable certainty.

The earliest temple of the Jews was the Tabernacle, the plan of which they always considered as divinely revealed to them through Moses in the desert of Sinai, and from which they consequently never departed in any subsequent erections. Its dimensions were for the cella, or Holy of Holies, 10 cubits or 15 ft. cube; for the outer temple, two such cubes or 15 ft. by 30. These were covered by the sloping roofs of the tent, which extended 5 cubits in every direction beyond the temple itself, making the whole 40 cubits or 60 ft. in length by 20 cubits or 30 ft. in width. These stood within an enclosure 100 cubits long by 50 cubits wide.^[104]

108. The Tabernacle, showing one half ground plan and one half as covered by the curtains.

When Solomon (B.C. 1015) built the Temple, he did not alter the disposition in any manner, but adopted it literally, only doubling every dimension. Thus the Holy of Holies became a cube of 20 cubits; the Holy place, 20 by 40; the porch and the chambers which surrounded it 10 cubits each, making a total of 80 cubits or 120 ft. by 40 cubits or 60 ft., with a height of 30 as compared with 15, which was the height of the ridge of the Tabernacle, and it was surrounded by a court the dimensions of which were 200 cubits in length by 100 in width.

Even with these increased dimensions the Temple was a very insignificant building in size: the truth being that, like the temples of 223Semitic nations, it was more in the character of a shrine or of a treasury intended to contain certain precious works in metal.

109. South-East View of the Tabernacle, as restored by the Author.

The principal ornaments of its façade were two brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which seem to have been wonders of metal work, and regarding which more has been written, and it may be added, more nonsense, than regarding almost any other known architectural objects. The truth of the matter appears to be that the translators of our Bibles in no instance were architects, and none of the architects who have attempted the restoration were learned as Hebrew scholars; and consequently the truth has fallen to the ground between the two. A brazen pillar, however, 18 cubits high and 12 cubits in circumference—6 ft. in diameter—is an absurdity that no brass-founder ever could have perpetrated. In the Hebrew, the 15th verse reads: “He cast two pillars of brass, 18 cubits was the height of the one pillar, and a line of 12 cubits encompassed the other pillar.”^[105] The truth of the matter seems to be that what Solomon erected was a screen (chapiter) consisting of two parts, one 4 cubits, the other 5 cubits in height, and supported by two pillars of metal, certainly not more than 1 cubit in diameter, and standing 12 cubits apart: nor does it seem difficult to perceive what purpose this screen was designed to effect. As will be observed, in the restoration of the Tabernacle (Woodcut No. 109), the whole of the light to the interior is admitted from the front. In the Temple the only light that could penetrate to the Holy of Holies was from the front also; and though the Holy place was partially lighted from the sides, its principal source of light must have been through the 224eastern façade. In consequence of this there must have been a large opening or window in this front, and as a window was a thing that they had not yet learned to make an ornamental feature in architectural design, they took this mode of screening and partially, at least, hiding it.

It becomes almost absolutely certain that this is the true solution of the riddle, when we find that when Herod rebuilt the Temple in the first century B.C., he erected a similar screen for the same purpose in front of his Temple. Its dimensions, however, were one-third larger. It was 40 cubits high, and 20 cubits across, and it supported five beams instead of two;^[106] not to display the chequer-work and pomegranates of Solomon’s screen, but to carry the Golden Vine, which was the principal ornament of the façade of the Temple in its latest form.^[107]

110. Plan of Solomon’s Temple, showing the disposition of the chambers in two storeys.

Although it is easy to understand how it was quite possible in metal work to introduce all the ornaments enumerated in the Bible, and with gilding and colour to make these objects of wonder, we have no examples with which we can compare them, and any restoration must consequently be somewhat fanciful. Still, we must recollect that this was the “bronze age” of architecture. Homer tells us of the brazen house of Priam, and the brazen palace of Alcinous; the Treasuries at Mycenæ were covered internally with bronze plates; and in Etruscan tombs of this age metal was far more essentially the material of decoration than carving in stone, or any of the modes afterwards so frequently adopted. The altar of the Temple was of brass. The molten sea, supported by twelve brazen oxen; the bases, the lavers, and all the other objects in metal work, were in reality what made the Temple so celebrated; and very little was due to the mere masonry by which we should judge of a Christian church or any modern building.

No pillars are mentioned as supporting the roof, but every analogy 225derived from Persian architecture, as well as the constructive necessities of the case, would lead us to suppose they must have existed, four in the sanctuary and eight in the pronaos.

111. Plan of Temple at Jerusalem, as rebuilt by Herod. Scale 200 ft. to 1 in.

The temple which Ezekiel saw in a vision on the banks of the Chebar was identical in dimensions with that of Solomon, in so far as naos and pronaos were concerned. But a passage round the naos was introduced, giving access to the chambers, which added 10 cubits to its dimensions every way, making it 100 cubits by 60. The principal court, which contained the Altar and the Temple properly so called, had the same dimensions as in Solomon’s Temple; but he added, in imagination at least, four courts, each 100 cubits or 150 ft. square. That on the east certainly existed, and seems to have been the new court of Solomon’s Temple,^[108] and is what in that of Herod became the court of the Gentiles. The north and south courts were never apparently carried out. They did not exist in Solomon’s Temple, and there is evidence to show that they were not found in Zerubbabel’s.^[109] That on the north-west angle was the citadel of the Temple, where the treasures were kept, and which was afterwards replaced by the Tower Antonia.

227

112. View of the Temple from the East, as it appeared at the time of the Crucifixion. (From a drawing by the Author.)

When the Jews returned from the Captivity they rebuilt the Temple exactly as it had been described by Ezekiel, in so far as dimensions are concerned, except that, as just mentioned, they do not seem to have been able to accomplish the northern and southern courts.

The materials, however, were probably inferior to the original Temple; and we hear nothing of brazen pillars in the porch, nor of the splendid vessels and furniture which made the glory of Solomon’s Temple, so that the Jews were probably justified in mourning over its comparative insignificance.^[110]

In the last Temple we have a perfect illustration of the mode in which the architectural enterprises of that country were carried out. The priests restored the Temple itself, not venturing to alter a single one of its sacred dimensions, only adding wings to the façade so as to make it 100 cubits wide, and it is said 100 cubits high, while the length remained 100 cubits as before.^[111] At this period, however, Judea was under the sway of the Romans and under the influence of their ideas, and the outer courts were added with a magnificence of which former builders had no conception, but bore strongly the impress of the architectural magnificence of the Romans.

An area measuring 600 feet each way was enclosed by terraced walls of the utmost lithic grandeur. On these were erected porticoes unsurpassed by any we know of. One, the Stoa Basilica, had a section equal to that of our largest cathedrals, and surpassed them all in length, and within this colonnaded enclosure were ten great gateways, two of which were of surpassing magnificence: the whole making up a rich and varied pile worthy of the Roman love of architectural display, but in singular contrast with the modest aspirations of a purely Semitic people.

It is always extremely difficult to restore any building from mere verbal description, and still more so when erected by a people of whose architecture we know so little as we do of that of the Jews. Still, the woodcut on the opposite page is probably not very far from representing the Temple as it was after the last restoration by Herod, barring of course the screen bearing the Vine mentioned above, which is omitted. Without attempting to justify every detail, it seems such a mixture of Roman with Phœnician forms as might be expected and is warranted by Josephus’s description. There is no feature for which authority could not be quoted, but the difficulty is to know whether or not the example adduced is the right one, or the one which bears most directly on the subject. After all, perhaps, its principal defect is that it does not (how can a modern restoration?) do justice to the grandeur and beauty of the whole.

228As it has been necessary to anticipate the chronological sequence of events in order not to separate the temples of the Jews from one another, it may be as well before proceeding further to allude to several temples similarly situated which apparently were originally Semitic shrines but rebuilt in Roman times. That at Palmyra, for instance, is a building very closely resembling that at Jerusalem, in so far at least as the outer enclosure is concerned.^[112] It consists of a cloistered enclosure of somewhat larger dimensions, measuring externally 730 ft. by 715, with a small temple of an anomalous form in the centre. It wants, however, all the inner enclosures and curious substructures of the Jewish fane; but this may have arisen from its having been rebuilt in late Roman times, and consequently shorn of these peculiarities. It is so similar, however, that it must be regarded as a cognate temple to that at Jerusalem, though re-erected by a people of another race.

A third temple, apparently very similar to these, is that of Kangovar in Persia.^[113] Only a portion now remains of the great court in which it stood, and which was nearly of the same dimensions as those of Jerusalem and Palmyra, being 660 ft. by 568. In the centre are the vestiges of a small temple. At Aizaini in Asia Minor^[114] is a fourth, with a similar court; but here the temple is more important, and assumes more distinctly the forms of a regular Roman peristylar temple of the usual form, though still small and insignificant for so considerable an enclosure.

The mosque of Damascus was once one of these great square temple-enclosures, with a small temple, properly so called, in the centre. It may have been as magnificent, perhaps more so, than any of these just enumerated, but it has been so altered by Christian and Moslem rebuildings, that it is almost impossible now to make out what its original form may have been.

None of these are original buildings, but still, when put together and compared the one with the other, and, above all, when examined by the light which discoveries farther east have enabled us to throw on the subject, they enable us to restore this style in something like its pristine form. At present, it is true, they are but the scattered fragments of an art of which it is feared no original specimens now remain, and which can only therefore be recovered by induction from similar cognate examples of other, though allied, styles of art.

CHAPTER VII. ASIA MINOR.

It is now perhaps in vain to expect that any monuments of the most ancient times, of great extent or of great architectural importance, remain to be discovered in Asia Minor; still, it is a storehouse from which much information may yet be gleaned, and whence we may expect the solution of many dark historical problems, if ever they are to be solved at all.

Situated as that country is, in the very centre of the old world, surrounded on three sides by navigable seas opening all the regions of the world to her commerce, possessing splendid harbours, a rich soil, and the finest climate of the whole earth, it must not only have been inhabited at the earliest period of history, but must have risen to a pitch of civilisation at a time preceding any written histories that we possess. We may recollect that, in the time of Psammeticus, Phrygia contended with Egypt for the palm of antiquity, and from the monuments of the 18th dynasty we know what rich spoil, what beautiful vases of gold, and other tributes of a rich and luxurious people, the Pout and Roteno and other inhabitants of Asia Minor brought and laid at the feet of Thothmes and other early kings eighteen centuries at least before the Christian era.

At a later period (716 to 547 B.C.) the Lydian empire was one of the richest and most powerful in Asia; and contemporary with this and for a long period subsequent to it, the Ionian colonies of Greece surpassed the mother country in wealth and refinement, and almost rivalled her in literature and art. Few cities of the ancient world surpassed Ephesus, Sardis, or Halicarnassus in splendour; and Troy, Tarsus, and Trebisond mark three great epochs in the history of Asia Minor which are unsurpassed in interest and political importance by the retrospect of any cities of the world. Excepting, however, the remains of the Greek and Roman periods—the great temples of the first, and the great theatres of the latter period—little that is architectural remains in this once favoured land. It happens also unfortunately that there was no great capital city—no central point—where 230we can look for monuments of importance. The defect in the physical geography of the country is that it has no great river running through it—no vast central plain capable of supporting a population sufficiently great to overpower the rest and to give unity to the whole.

113. Elevation of Tumulus at Tantalais. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’) 100 ft. to 1 in.

114. Plan and Section of Chamber in Tumulus at Tantalais.

So far as our researches yet reach, it would seem that the oldest remains still found in Asia Minor are the tumuli of Tantalais, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Smyrna. They seem as if left there most opportunely to authenticate the tradition of the Etruscans having sailed from this port for Italy. One of these is represented in Woodcuts Nos. 113 and 114. Though these tumuli are built wholly of stone, no one familiar with architectural resemblances can fail to see in them a common origin with those of Etruria. The stylobate, the sloping sides, the inner chamber, with its pointed roof, all the arrangements, indeed, are the same, and the whole character of the necropolis at Tantalais would be as appropriate at Tarquinii or Cæræ as at Smyrna.

115. Section of Tomb of Alyattes. (From Spiegelthal.) No scale.

Another tumulus of equal interest historically is that of Alyattes, near Sardis, described with such care by Herodotus,^[115] and which was explored 35 years ago by Spiegelthal, the Prussian consul at Smyrna.^[116] According to the measurements of Herodotus, it was either 3800 or 2314100 ft. in circumference; at present it is found to be 1180 ft. in diameter, and consequently about 3700 ft. in circumference at the top of the basement, though of course considerably more below. It is situated on the edge of a rocky ridge, which is made level on one side by a terrace-wall of large stones, 60 ft. in height; above this the mound rises to the height of 142 ft.: the total height above the plain being 228 ft. The upper part of the mound is composed of alternate layers of clay, loam, and a kind of rubble concrete. These support a mass of brickwork, surmounted by a platform of masonry; on this one of the steles described by Herodotus still lies, and one of the smaller ones was found close by.

The funereal chamber was discovered resting on the rock at about 160 ft. from the centre of the mound. Its dimensions were 11 ft. by 7 ft. 9 in., and 7 ft. high; the roof flat and composed of large stones, on which rested a layer of charcoal and ashes, 2 ft. in thickness, evidently the remains of the offerings which had been made after the chamber was closed, but before the mound had been raised over it.

There are in the same locality an immense number of tumuli of various dimensions, among which Herr Spiegelthal fancies he can discriminate three classes, belonging to three distinct ages; that of Alyattes belonging to the most modern. This is extremely probable, as at this time (B.C. 561) the fashion of erecting tumuli as monuments was dying out in this part of the world, though it continued in less civilised parts of Europe till long after the Christian era.

The tumuli that still adorn the Plain of Troy are probably contemporary with the oldest of the three groups of those around the Gygean Lake. Indeed, there does not seem much reason for doubting that they were really raised over the ashes of the heroes who took part in that memorable struggle, and whose names they still bear.

The recent explorations of these mounds do not seem to have thrown much light on the subject, but if we can trust the account Chevalier gives of his researches at the end of the last century, the case is clear enough, and there can be very little doubt but that the Dios Tepe on the Sigæan promontory is really the tomb of Achilles.^[117] Intensely interesting though they are in other respects, Schliemann’s discoveries on the site of Troy have done very little to increase our 232knowledge of the architecture of the period. This may partly be owing to his ignorance of the art, and to his having no architect with him, but it does not appear that any architectural mouldings were discovered earlier than those of “Ilium Novum,” two or three centuries before Christ. The so-called Temple of Minerva was without pillars or mouldings of any sort, and the walls and gates of the old city were equally devoid of ornament. What was found seems to confirm the idea that the Trojans were a Turanian-Pelasgic people burying their dead in mounds, and revelling in barbaric splendour, but not having reached that degree of civilisation which would induce them to seek to perpetuate their forms of art in more permanent materials than earth and metals.^[118]

It is not clear whether any other great groups of tumuli exist in Asia Minor, but it seems more than probable that in the earliest times the whole of this country was inhabited by a Pelasgic race, who were the first known occupants of Greece, and who built the so-called Treasuries of Mycenæ and Orchomenos, and who sent forth the Etruscans to civilise Italy. If this be so, it accounts for the absence of architectural remains, for they would have left behind them no buildings but the sepulchres of their departed great ones; and if their history is to be recovered, it must be sought for in the bowels of the earth, and not in anything existing above-ground.

Next to these in point of age and style comes a curious group of rock-cut monuments, found in the centre of the land at Doganlu. They are placed on the rocky side of a narrow valley, and are unconnected apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor anything about them to indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a destination. Altogether they are certainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, present no features that afford even a remote analogy to other monuments which might guide us in our conjectures as to the purpose for which they were designed. They are of a style of art clearly indicating a wooden 233origin, and consist of a square frontispiece, either carved into certain geometric shapes, or apparently prepared for painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a pediment terminating in two scrolls. Some—apparently the more modern—have pillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more singular than beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered, they may help us to some historic data: all that we can now advance is, that, judging from the inscriptions on them and the traditions in Herodotus, they would appear to belong to some race from Thessaly, or thereabouts, who at some remote period crossed the Hellespont and settled in their neighbourhood; they may be dated as far back as 1000, and most probably 700 years at least before the Christian Era.

116. Rock-cut Frontispiece at Doganlu. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)

There are other rock-cut sculptures farther east, at Pterium and elsewhere; but all these are figure sculptures, without architectural form or details, and therefore hardly coming within the limits of this work.

The only remaining important architectural group in Asia Minor is that of Lycia, made known in this country since the year 1838, by the investigations of Sir Charles Fellows and others. Interesting though they certainly are, they are extremely disheartening to any one looking for earlier remains in this land,—inasmuch as all of them, and more especially the older ones, indicate distinctly a wooden origin—more 234strongly perhaps than any architectural remains in the Western world. The oldest of them cannot well be carried farther back than the Persian conquest of Cyrus and Harpagus. In other words, it seems perfectly evident that up to that period the Lycians used only wood for their buildings, and that it was only at that time, and probably from the Greeks or Egyptians, that they, like the Persians themselves, first learnt to substitute for their frail and perishable structures others of a more durable material.

117. Lycian Tomb. (From British Museum.)

As already observed, the same process can be traced in Egypt in the earliest ages. In Central Asia the change was effected by the Persians. In India between the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. In Greece—in what was not borrowed from the Egyptians—the change took place a little earlier than in Lycia, or say in the 7th century B.C. What is important to observe here is that, wherever the process can be detected, it is in vain to look for earlier buildings. It is only in the infancy of stone architecture that men adhere to wooden forms; and as soon as habit gives them familiarity with the new material they 235abandon the incongruities of the style, and we lose all trace of the original form, which never reappears at an after age.

All the original buildings of Lycia are tombs or monumental erections of some kind, and generally may be classed under two heads, those having curvilinear and those having rectilinear roofs, of both which classes examples are found structural—or standing alone—as well as rock-cut. The woodcut (No. 117) represents a perfectly constructed tomb. It consists first of a double podium, which may have been in all cases, or at least generally, of stone. Above this is a rectangular chest or sarcophagus, certainly copied from a wooden form; all the mortises and framing, even to the pins that held them together, being literally rendered in the stonework. Above this is a curvilinear roof of pointed form, which also is in all its parts a copy of an original in wood.

The staves or bearers of the lower portion of the chest or sarcophagus would suggest that the original feature was a portable ark, the upper portion of which was framed in bamboo or some pliable wood tied together by cross timbers or purlins which are carved on the principal front. A somewhat similar scheme of construction is shown in the Chaityas of the Buddhist temples, which are supposed to have been copies of wooden structures not dissimilar to the Toda Mant huts which are built by the Hindus down to the present day.^[119]

118. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Forbes and Spratt’s ‘Lycia.’)

119. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Sir Charles Fellows’s work.)

120. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)

When these forms are repeated in the rock the stylobate is omitted, and only the upper part represented, as shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 118).

When the curvilinear roof is omitted, a flat one is substituted, 237nearly similar to those common in the country at the present day, consisting of beams of unsquared timber, laid side by side as close as they can be laid, and over this a mass of concrete or clay, sufficiently thick to prevent the rain from penetrating through. Sometimes this is surmounted by a low pediment, and sometimes the lower framing also stands out from the rock, so as to give the entrance of the tomb something of a porchlike form. Both these forms are illustrated in the two woodcuts (Nos. 119 and 120), and numerous varieties of them are shown in the works of Sir Charles Fellows and others, all containing the same elements, and betraying most distinctly the wooden origin from which they were derived.

121. Ionic Lycian Tomb. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)

The last form that these buildings took was in the substitution of an Ionic façade for these carpentry forms: this was not done apparently at once, for, though the Ionic form was evidently borrowed from the neighbouring Greek cities, it was only adopted by degrees, and even then betrayed more strongly the wooden forms from which its entablature was derived than is usually found in other or more purely Grecian examples. As soon as it had fairly gained a footing, the wooden style was abandoned, and a masonry one substituted in its stead. The whole change took place in this country probably within a century; but this is not a fair test of the time such a process usually takes, as here it was evidently done under foreign influence and with the spur given by the example of a stone-building people. We have no knowledge of how long it took in Egypt to effect the transformation. In India, where the form and construction of the older Buddhist temples resemble so singularly these examples in Lycia, the process can be traced through five or six centuries; and in Persia it took perhaps nearly as long to convert the wooden designs of the Assyrians into even the imperfect stone architecture of the Achæmenians. Even in their best and most perfect buildings, however, much remained to be done before the carpentry types were fairly got rid of and the style became entitled to rank among the masonic arts of the world.

238The remaining ancient buildings of Asia Minor were all built by the Greeks and Romans, each in their own style, so that their classification and description belong properly to the chapters treating of the architectural history of those nations, from which they cannot properly be separated, although it is at the same time undoubtedly true that the purely European forms of the art were considerably modified by the influence on them of local Asiatic forms and feelings. The Ionic order, for instance, which arose in the Grecian colonies on the coast, is only the native style of this country Doricised, if the expression may be used. In other words, the local method of building had become so modified and altered by the Greeks in adapting it to the Doric, which had become the typical style with them, as to cause the loss of almost all its original Asiatic forms. It thus became essentially a stone architecture with external columns, instead of a style indulging only in wooden pillars, and those used internally, as there is every reason to suppose was the earlier form of the art. The Ionic style, thus composed of two elements, took the arrangement of the temples from the Doric, and their details from the Asiatic original. The Roman temples, on the contrary, which have been erected in this part of the world, in their columns and other details exactly follow the buildings at Rome itself: while, as in the instances above quoted of Jerusalem, Palmyra, Kangovar, and others, the essential forms and arrangements are all local and Asiatic. The former are Greek temples with Asiatic details, the latter Asiatic temples with only Roman masonic forms. The Greeks, in fact, were colonists, the Romans only conquerors; and hence the striking difference in the style of Asiatic art executed under their respective influence. We shall have frequent occasion in the sequel to refer to this difference.

Though not strictly within the geographical limits of this chapter, there is a group of tombs at Amrith—the ancient Marathos, on the coast of Syria—which are too interesting to be passed over; but so exceptional in the present state of our knowledge, that it is difficult to assign them their proper place anywhere.

The principal monument, represented in woodcut No. 122, is 31 ft. 8 in. in height, composed of very large blocks of stone and situated over a sepulchral cavern. There is no inscription or indication to enable us to fix its date with certainty.^[120] The details of its 239architecture might be called Assyrian; but we know of nothing in that country that at all resembles it. On the other hand there is a moulding on its base, which, if correctly drawn, would appear to be of Roman origin; and there is a look about the lions that would lead us to suspect they were carved under Greek influence—after the age of Alexander at least.

122. Elevation of the Monument and Section of the Tomb at Amrith. (From Renan.^[121])

The interest consists in its being almost the only perfect survivor of a class of monuments at one time probably very common; but which we are led to believe from the style of ornamentation were generally in brick. It is also suggestive, from its close resemblance to the Buddhist topes in Afghanistan and India; the tall form of those, especially in the first-named country, and their universally domical outline, point unmistakably to some such original as this: and lastly, were I asked to point out the building in the old world which most resembled the stele which Herod erected over the Tombs of the Kings at Jerusalem, in expiation of his desecration of their sanctity,^[122] this is the monument to which I should unhesitatingly refer.

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123. West View of the Acropolis restored. (From Wordsworth’s ‘Athens.’^[123])

BOOK III. — CHAPTER I. GREECE. — Pelasgic Art.

CONTENTS.

Historical notice—Pelasgic art—Tomb of Atreus—Other remains—Hellenic Greece—History of the orders—Doric order—the Parthenon—Ionic order—Corinthian order—Caryatides—Forms of temples—Mode of lighting—Municipal architecture—Theatres.

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CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.

	DATES.
Atridæ at Mycenæ, from	B.C. 1207 to 1104
Return of the Heraclidæ to Peloponnese	1104
Olympiads commence	776
Cypselidæ at Corinth—Building of temple at Corinth, from	655 to 581
Selinus founded, and first temple commenced	626
Ascendency of Ægina—Building of temple at Ægina, from	508 to 499
Battle of Marathon	490
Battle of Salamis	480
Theron at Agrigentum. Commences great temple	480
Cimon at Athens. Temple of Theseus built	469
Pericles at Athens. Parthenon finished	438
Temple of Jupiter at Olympia finished	436
Propylæa at Athens built, from	437 to 432
Selinus destroyed by Carthaginians	410
Erechtheium at Athens finished	409
Monument of Lysicrates at Athens	335
Death of Alexander the Great	324

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Till within a very recent period the histories of Greece and Rome have been considered as the ancient histories of the world; and even now, in our universities and public schools, it is scarcely acknowledged 241that a more ancient record has been read on the monuments of Egypt and dug out of the bowels of the earth in Assyria.

It is nevertheless true that the decipherment of the hieroglyphics on the one hand, and the reading of the arrow-headed characters on the other, have disclosed to us two forms of civilisation anterior to that which reappeared in Greece in the 8th century before Christ. Based on those that preceded it, the Hellenic form developed itself there with a degree of perfection never before seen, nor has it, in its own peculiar department, ever been since surpassed.

These discoveries have been of the utmost importance, not only in correcting our hitherto narrow views of ancient history, but in assisting to explain much that was obscure, or utterly unintelligible, in those histories with which we were more immediately familiar. We now, for the first time, comprehend whence the Greeks obtained many of their arts and much of their civilisation, and to what extent the character of these was affected by the sources from which they were derived.

Having already described the artistic forms of Egypt and Assyria, it is not difficult to discover the origin of almost every idea, and of every architectural feature, that was afterwards found in Greece. But even with this assistance we should not be able to understand the phenomena which Greek art presents to us, were it not that the monuments reveal to us the existence of two distinct and separate races existing contemporaneously in Greece. If the Greeks were as purely Aryan as their language would lead us to believe, all our ethnographic theories are at fault. But this is precisely one of those cases where archæology steps in to supplement what philology tells us and to elucidate what that science fails to reveal. That the language of the Greeks, with the smallest possible admixture from other sources, is pure Aryan, no one will dispute: but their arts, their religion, and frequently their institutions, tend to ascribe to them an altogether different origin. Fortunately the ruins at Mycenæ and Orchomenos are sufficient to afford us a key to the mystery. From them we learn that at the time of the war of Troy a people were supreme in Greece who were not Hellenes, but who were closely allied to the Etruscans and other tomb-building, art-loving races. Whether they were purely Turanian, or merely ultra-Celtic, may be questioned; but one thing seems clear, that this people were then known to the ancients under the name of Pelasgi, and it is their presence in Greece, mixed up with the more purely Dorian races, which explains what would otherwise be unintelligible in Grecian civilisation.

Except from our knowledge of the existence of a strong infusion of Turanian blood into the veins of the Grecian people, it would be impossible to understand how a people so purely Aryan in appearance came to adopt a religion so essentially Anthropic and Ancestral. 242Their belief in oracles, their worship of trees,^[124] and many minor peculiarities, were altogether abhorrent to the Aryan mind.

The existence of these two antagonistic elements satisfactorily explains how it was that while art was unknown in the purely Dorian city of Sparta, it flourished so exuberantly in the quasi-Pelasgic city of Athens; why the Dorians borrowed their architectural order from Egypt, and hardly changed its form during the long period they employed it; and how it came to pass that the eastern art of the Persians was brought into Greece, and how it was there modified so essentially that we hardly recognise the original in its altered and more perfect form. It explains, too, how the different States of Greece were artistic or matter-of-fact in the exact proportion in which either of the two elements predominated in the people.

Thus the poetry of Arcadia was unknown in the neighbouring State of Sparta; but the Doric race there remained true to their institutions and spread their colonies and their power farther than any other of the little principalities of Greece. The institutions of Lycurgus could never have been maintained in Athens; but, on the other hand, the Parthenon was as impossible in the Lacedemonian State. Even in Athens art would not have been the wonder that it became without that happy admixture of the two races which then prevailed, mingling the common sense of the one with the artistic feeling of the other, which tended to produce the most brilliant intellectual development which has yet dazzled the world with its splendour.

The contemporary presence of these two races perhaps also explains how Greek civilisation, though so wonderfully brilliant, passed so quickly away. Had either race been pure, the Dorian institutions might have lasted as long as the village-systems of India or the arts of Egypt or China; but where two dissimilar races mix, the tendency is inevitably to revert to the type of one, and, though the intermixture may produce a stock more brilliant than either parent, the type is less permanent and soon passes away. So soon was it the case, in this instance, that the whole of the great history of Greece may be said to be comprehended in the period ranging between the battle of Marathon (B.C. 490) and the peace concluded with Philip of Macedon by the Athenians (B.C. 346): so that the son of a man who was born before the first event may have been a party to the second. All those wonders of patriotism, of poetry, and art, for which Greece was famous, crowded into the short space of a century and a half, is a phenomenon the like of which the world has not seen before, and is not likely to witness again.

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As might be expected, from the length of time that has elapsed since the Pelasgic races ruled in Greece, and owing to the numerous changes that have taken place in that country since their day, their architectural remains are few, and comparatively insignificant. It has thus come to pass that, were it not for their tombs, their city walls, and their works of civil engineering, such as bridges and tunnels—in which they were pre-eminent—we should hardly now possess any material remains to prove their existence or mark the degree of civilisation to which they had reached.

124. Section and Plan of Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ. Scale of plan 100 ft. to 1 in.

The most remarkable of these remains are the tombs of the kings of Mycenæ, a city which in Homeric times had a fair title to be considered the capital of Greece, or at all events to be considered one of the most important of her cities. The Dorians described these as treasuries, from the number of precious objects found in them, as in the tombs of the Etruscans, and because they looked upon such halls as far more than sufficient for the narrow dwellings of the dead. The most perfect and the largest of them now existing is known as the Treasury or Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ, shown in plan and section in the annexed woodcut. The principal chamber is 48 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and is, or was when perfect, of the shape of a regular equilateral pointed arch, a form well adapted to the mode of construction, which is that of horizontal layers of stones, projecting the one beyond the other, till one small stone closed the whole, and made the vault complete.

As will be explained further on, this was the form of dome adopted by the Jaina architects in India. It prevailed also in Italy and Asia Minor wherever a Pelasgic race is traced, down to the time when the pointed form again came into use in the Middle Ages, though it was not then used as a horizontal, but as a radiating arch.

244On one side of this hall is a chamber cut in the rock, the true sepulchre apparently, and externally is a long passage leading to a doorway, which, judging from the fragments that remain (Woodcut No. 125), must have been of a purely Asiatic form of art, and very unlike anything found subsequent to this period in Greece.

125. Fragment of Pillar in front of Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ.

To all appearance the dome was lined internally with plates of brass or bronze, some nails of which metals are now found there; and the holes in which the nails were inserted are still to be seen all over the place. A second tomb or treasury of smaller dimensions was discovered by Dr. Schliemann in 1878. Another of these tombs, erected by Minyas at Orchomenos, described by Pausanias as one of the wonders of Greece,^[125] seems from the remains still existing to have been at least 20 ft. wider than this one, and proportionably larger in every respect. All these were covered with earth, and some are probably still hidden which a diligent search might reveal. In fact Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries in the Acropolis of Mycenæ and in the Troad prove that it is still possible to discover an unrifled tomb even in Greece.

As domes constructed on the horizontal principle, these three are the largest of which we have any knowledge, though there does not appear to be any reasonable limit to the extent to which such a form of building might be carried. When backed by earth,^[126] as these were, it is evident, from the mode of construction, that they cannot be destroyed by any equable pressure exerted from the exterior.

The only danger to be feared is, what is technically called a rising of the haunches; and to avoid this it might be necessary, where large domes were attempted, to adopt a form more nearly conical than that used at Mycenæ. This might be a less pleasing architectural feature, but it is constructively a better one than the form of the radiating domes we generally employ.

245It is certainly to be regretted that more of the decorative features of this early style have not been discovered. They differ so entirely from anything else in Greece, and are so purely Asiatic in form, that it would be exceedingly interesting to be able to restore a complete decoration of any sort. In all the parts hitherto brought to light, an Ionic-like scroll is repeated in every part and over every detail, rather rudely executed, but probably originally heightened by colour. Its counterparts are found in Assyria and at Persepolis, but nowhere else in Greece.^[127]

126. Gateway at Thoricus. (From Dodwell’s ‘Greece.’)

The Pelasgic races soon learnt to adopt for their doorways the more pleasing curvilinear form with which they were already familiar from their interiors. The annexed illustration (Woodcut No. 126) from a gateway at Thoricus, in Attica, serves to show its simplest and earliest form; and the illustration (Woodcut No. 129) from Assos, in Asia Minor, of a far more modern date, shows the most complicated form it took in ancient times. In this last instance it is merely a discharging arch, and so little fitted for the purpose to which it is applied, that we can only suppose that its adoption arose from a strong predilection for this shape.

Another illustration of Pelasgic masonry is found at Delos (Woodcut No. 127), consisting of a roof formed by two arch stones, at a certain angle to one another, similar to the plan adopted in Egypt, and is further interesting as being associated with capitals of pillars formed of the front part of bulls, as in Assyria, pointing again to the intimate connection that existed between Greece and Asia at this early period of the former’s history.

127. Arch at Delos. (From Stuart’s ‘Athens.’)

In all these instances it does not seem to have been so much want 246of knowledge that led these early builders to adopt the horizontal in preference to the radiating principle, as a conviction of its greater durability, as well, perhaps, as a certain predilection for an ancient mode.

In the construction of their walls they adhered, as a mere matter of taste, to forms which they must have known to be inferior to others. In the example, for instance, of a wall in the Peloponnesus (woodcut No. 128), we find the polygonal masonry of an earlier age actually placed upon as perfect a specimen built in regular courses, or what is technically called ashlar work, as any to be found in Greece; and on the other side of the gateway at Assos (Woodcut No. 129) there exists a semicircular arch, shown by the dotted lines, which is constructed horizontally, and could only have been copied from a radiating arch.

128. Wall in Peloponnesus. (From Blouet’s ‘Voyage en Grèce.’)

Their city walls are chiefly remarkable for the size of the blocks of stone used and for the beauty with which their irregular joints and courses are fitted into one another. Like most fortifications, they are generally devoid of ornament, the only architectural features being the openings. These are interesting, as showing the steps by which a peculiar form of masonry was perfected, and which, in after ages, led to important architectural results.

129. Gateway at Assos. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)

One of the most primitive of these buildings is a nameless ruin existing near Missolonghi (Woodcut No. 130). In it the sides of the opening are straight for the whole height, and, though making a very stable form of opening, it is one to which it is extremely difficult to fit doors, or to close by any known means. It was this difficulty that led to the next expedient adopted of inserting a lintel at a certain height, and making the jambs more perpendicular below, and more sloping above. This method is already exemplified in the tomb of Atreus 247(Woodcut No. 124), and in the Gate of the Lions at Mycenæ (Woodcut No. 131); but it is by no means clear whether the pediments were always filled up with sculpture, as in this instance, or left open. In the walls of a town they were probably always closed, but left open in a chamber. In the gate at Mycenæ the two lions stand against an altar^[128] shaped like a pillar, of a form found only in Lycia, in which the round ends of the timbers of the roof are shown as if projecting into the frieze.

130. Doorway at Missolonghi. (From Dodwell.)

131. Gate of Lions, Mycenæ.

These are slight remains, it must be confessed, from which to reconstruct an art which had so much influence on the civilisation of Greece; but they are sufficient for the archæologist, as the existence of a few fossil fragments of the bones of an elephant or a tortoise suffice to prove the pre-existence of those animals wherever they have been found, and enable the palæontologist to reason upon them with almost as much certainty as if he saw them in a menagerie. Nor is it difficult to see why the remnants are so few. When Homer describes the imaginary dwelling of Alcinous—which he meant to be typical of a perfect palace in his day—he does not speak of its construction or solidity, nor tell us how symmetrically it was arranged; but he is lavish of his praise of its brazen walls, its golden doors with their silver posts and lintels—just as the writers of the Books of Kings and Chronicles praise the contemporary temple or palace of Solomon for similar metallic splendour.

The palace of Menelaus is described by the same author as full of brass and gold, silver and ivory. It was resplendent as the sun and moon, and appeared to the eye of Telemachus like the mansion of Jupiter himself.

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132. Plan of Palace at Tiryns.

On the architecture of the early Greek palaces considerable light has been thrown through the researches of the late Dr. Schliemann at Tiryns, on his second visit in 1884, when he was accompanied by Dr. Dörpfield, who measured and drew out the plan which is here reproduced (Woodcut No. 132). The palace at Tiryns is assumed by Dr. Schliemann to have been destroyed by fire in the 11th century B.C. It was built in the upper citadel and faced the south. The citadel was entered through a propylæum with outer and inner portico, both in antis. A second propylæum of smaller dimensions on the south of the entrance court gave access to the chief court of the palace; this court was surrounded by porticoes on three sides, and on the fourth or south side, a vestibule consisting of a portico-in-antis leading to an ante-chamber, and the megaron or men’s hall. The ante-chamber was separated from the portico by three folding-doors, hung on solid timber framing; a single door, probably closed by a curtain only, led from the ante-chamber to the men’s hall, measuring 48 ft. by 33 ft., the roof of which was supported on four pillars or columns; a circle in the centre of these indicated probably the hearth. There are various chambers on the west side, one of which, the bath-room, measuring 13 ft. by 10 ft., had a floor consisting of a gigantic block of limestone 2 ft. thick and weighing 14 to 15 tons. On the east side of the men’s hall was a second court with vestibule or south side leading to the 249women’s hall (thalamos), 24 ft. by 17 ft., and various other rooms on the west side of it. To the south of the women’s court was a third court which may be considered to be the court of service, with a passage leading direct to the entrance propylon of the citadel.

The walls were built in rubble masonry and clay mortar (clay mixed with straw or hay); the foundations were carried from 6 ft. to 8 ft. below the ground. The walls were protected externally; first by a layer of clay of various thicknesses and then with a plaster of lime about half an inch thick. The upper portions of the walls generally consisted of sun-dried bricks, and in order to give greater strength to the walls, beams laid on thin slabs of stone (to give a horizontal bed) were built into the outer surface. Blocks of hard limestone or breccia were used for all the steps and door cills. The exposed angles of the walls and the responds or antæ^[129] of the columns were built of stone in the lower part and wood above (in Troy they were always in wood with a stone base). Opinions differ as to the lighting of the halls; the smaller chambers were probably lighted through the door, as in Pompeii; but the men’s and women’s halls must either have received their light through openings at the side under the roof, or by a raised lantern over the hearth before referred to.

No temples are mentioned by Homer, nor by any early writer; but the funereal rites celebrated in honour of Patroclus, as described in the XXIII. Book of the Iliad, and the mounds still existing on the Plains of Troy, testify to the character of the people whose manners and customs he was describing, and would alone be sufficient to convince us that, except in their tombs, we should find little to commemorate their previous existence.

The subject is interesting, and deserves far more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it, and more space than can be devoted to it here. Not only is this art the art of people who warred before Troy, but our knowledge of it reveals to us a secret which otherwise might for ever have remained a mystery. The religion of the Homeric poems is essentially Anthropic and Ancestral—in other words, of Turanian origin, with hardly a trace of Aryan feeling running through it. When we know that the same was the case with the arts of those days, we feel that it could not well be otherwise; but what most excites our wonder is the power of the poet, whose song, describing the manners and feelings of an extinct race, was so beautiful as to cause its adoption as a gospel by a people 250of another race, tincturing their religion to the latest hour of their existence.

We have very little means of knowing how long this style of art lasted in Greece. The treasury built by Myron king of Sicyon at Olympia about 650 B.C. seems to have been of this style, in so far as we can judge of it by the description of Pausanias.^[130] It consisted of two chambers, one ornamented in the Doric, one in the Ionic style, not apparently with pillars, but with that kind of decoration which appears at that period to have been recognised as peculiar to each. But the entire decorations seem to have been of brass, the weight of metal employed being recorded in an inscription on the building. The earliest example of a Doric temple that we know of—that of Corinth—would appear to belong to very nearly the same age, so that the 7th century B.C. may probably be taken as the period when the old Turanian form of Pelasgic art gave way before the sterner and more perfect creations of a purer Hellenic design. Perhaps it might be more correct to say that the Hellenic history of Greece commenced with the Olympiads (B.C. 776), but before that kingdom bloomed into perfection an older civilisation had passed away, leaving little beyond a few tombs and works of public utility as records of its prior existence. It left, however, an undying influence which can be traced through every subsequent stage of Grecian history, which gave form to that wonderful artistic development of art, the principal if not the only cause of the unrivalled degree of perfection to which it subsequently attained.

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133. Plan of the Acropolis at Athens.

A. Propylæa. B. Temple of Niké Apteros. C. Parthenon. D. Erechtheium. E. Foundations of old Temple of Athena, sixth century B.C.

CHAPTER II. HELLENIC GREECE. — HISTORY OF THE ORDERS. — Doric Temples in Greece. — Doric Temples in Sicily. — Ionic Temples. — Corinthian Temples. — Dimensions of Greek Temples. — Doric Order. — Ionic Order. — Corinthian Order. — Caryatides. — Forms of Temples. — Mode of Lighting Temples. — Temple of Diana at Ephesus. — Municipal Architecture. — Theatres. — Tombs. — Cyrene. — Domestic Architecture.

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The culminating period of the Pelasgic civilisation of Greece was at the time of the war with Troy—the last great military event of that age, and the one which seems to have closed the long and intimate connection of the Greek Pelasgians with their cognate races in Asia.

Sixty years later the irruption of the Thessalians, and twenty years after that event the return of the Heracleidæ, closed, in a political sense, that chapter in history, and gave rise to what may be styled the Hellenic civilisation, which proved the great and true glory of Greece.

Four centuries, however, elapsed, which may appropriately be called the dark ages of Greece, before the new seed bore fruit, at least in so far as art is concerned. These ages produced, it is true, the laws of Lycurgus, a characteristic effort of a truly Aryan race, conferring as they did on the people who made them that power of self-government, and capacity for republican institutions, which gave them such stability at home and so much power abroad, but which were as inimical to the softer glories of the fine arts in Sparta as they have proved elsewhere.

When, after this long night, architectural art reappeared, it was at Corinth, under the Cypselidæ, a race of strongly-marked Asiatic tendencies; but it had in the meantime undergone so great a transformation as to well-nigh bewilder us. On its reappearance it was no longer characterised by the elegant and ornate art of Mycenæ and the cognate forms of Asiatic growth, but had assumed the rude, bold proportions of Egyptian art, and with almost more than Egyptian massiveness.

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The age of the Doric temple at Corinth is not, it is true, satisfactorily determined; but the balance of evidence would lead us to believe that it belongs to the age of Cypselus, or about 650 B.C. The pillars are less than four diameters in height, and the architrave—the only part of the superstructure that now remains—is proportionately heavy. It is, indeed, one of the most massive specimens of architecture existing, more so than even the rock-cut prototype at Beni Hasan. As a work of art, it fails from excess of strength, a fault common to most of the efforts of a rude people, ignorant of the true resources of art, and striving, by the expression of physical power alone, to attain its objects.

Next in age to this is the little temple at Ægina.^[131] Its date, too, is unknown, though, judging from the character of its sculpture, it probably belongs to the middle of the sixth century before Christ.

134. Temple at Ægina restored. No scale.

We know that Athens had a great temple on the Acropolis, contemporary with these, and the frusta of its columns still remain, which, after its destruction by the Persians, were built into the walls of the citadel. It is more than probable that all the principal cities of Greece had temples commensurate with their dignity before the Persian War. Many of these were destroyed during that struggle; but it also happened then, as in France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries, that the old temples were thought unworthy of the national greatness, and of that feeling of exaltation arising from the successful result of the greatest of their wars, so that almost all those which 253remained were pulled down or rebuilt. The consequence is, that nearly all the great temples now found in Greece were built in the forty or fifty years which succeeded the defeat of the Persians at Salamis and Platæa.

One of the oldest temples of this class is that best known as the Theseion or Temple of Theseus at Athens, now recognised as the Temple of Hephaistos mentioned in the “Attica” of Pausanias. By an analysis of the architectural character of the Temple Dr. Dorpfield contends that it is posterior to the Parthenon and not anterior, as is generally supposed.

Of all the great temples, the best and most celebrated is the Parthenon, the only octastyle Doric Temple in Greece, and in its own class undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world. It is true it has neither the dimensions nor the wondrous expression of power and eternity inherent in Egyptian temples, nor has it the variety and poetry of the Gothic Cathedral; but for intellectual beauty, for perfection of proportion, for beauty of detail, and for the exquisite perception of the highest and most recondite principles of art ever applied to architecture, it stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the glory of Greece and a reproach to the rest of the world.

Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different, this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.

The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera, which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required renewal.^[132] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at 254Bassæ; a third hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many buildings dating from the Roman occupation.

To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its execution belongs to a later date.

The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.^[133]

Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority, however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself, prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a secondary illustration.

At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example, differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of 255the age. Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to. Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480, and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was destroyed by the Carthaginians.

At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect state.

Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater part of its internal columnar arrangement.

The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars, supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form, is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.

We have even fewer materials for the history of the Ionic order in Greece than we have for that of the Doric. The recent discoveries in Assyria have proved beyond a doubt that the Ionic was even more essentially an introduction from Asia^[134] than the Doric was from Egypt: the only question is, when it was brought into Greece. My own impression is, that it existed there in one form or another from the earliest ages, but owing to its slenderer proportions, and the greater quantity of wood used in its construction, the examples may have perished, so that nothing is now known to exist which can lay claim to even so great an antiquity as the Persian War.

The oldest example, probably, was the temple on the Ilissus, now destroyed, dating from about 484 B.C.; next to this is the little gem of a temple dedicated to Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, built about fifteen years later, in front of the Propylæa at Athens. The last and most perfect of all the examples of this order is the Erechtheium, 256on the Acropolis; its date is apparently about 420 B.C., the great epoch of Athenian art. Nowhere did the exquisite taste and skill of the Athenians show themselves to greater advantage than here; for though every detail of the order may be traced back to Nineveh or Persepolis, all are so purified, so imbued with purely Grecian taste and feeling, that they have become essential parts of a far more beautiful order than ever existed in the land in which they had their origin.

The largest, and perhaps the finest, of Grecian Ionic temples was that built about a century afterwards at Tegea, in Arcadia—a regular peripteral temple of considerable dimensions, but the existence of which is now known only from the description of Pausanias.^[135]

As in the case, however, of the Doric order, it is not in Greece itself that we find either the greatest number of Ionic temples or those most remarkable for size, but in the colonies in Asia Minor, and more especially in Ionia, whence the order most properly takes its name.

That an Ionic order existed in Asia Minor before the Persian War is quite certain, but all examples perished in that memorable struggle; and when it subsequently reappeared, the order had lost much of its purely Asiatic character, and assumed certain forms and tendencies borrowed from the simpler and purer Doric style.

If any temple in the Asiatic Greek colonies escaped destruction in the Persian wars, it was that of Juno at Samos. It is said to have been built by Polycrates, and appears to have been of the Doric order. The ruins now found there are of the Ionic order, 346 ft. by 190 ft., and must have succeeded the first mentioned. The apparent archaisms in the form of the bases, &c., which have misled antiquarians, are merely Eastern forms retained in spite of Grecian influence.

More remarkable even than this was the celebrated Temple of Diana at Ephesus, said by Pliny to have been 425 ft. long by 220 ft. wide. Recent excavations on the site, however, carried out by Mr. T. Wood, prove that these dimensions apply only to the platform on which it stood. The temple itself, measured from the outside of the angle pillars, was only 348 ft. by 164, making the area 57,072 ft., or about the average dimensions of our mediæval cathedrals.

Besides these, there was a splendid decastyle temple, dedicated to Apollo Didymæus, at Miletus, 156 ft. wide by 295 ft. in length; an octastyle at Sardis, 261 ft. by 144 ft.; an exquisitely beautiful, though small hexastyle, at Priene, 122 ft. by 64 ft.; and another at Teos, and smaller examples elsewhere, besides many others which have no doubt perished.

German explorations in Pergamon have brought to light the remains of the Augustæum, a building consisting of two detached wings 257with columns of the Ionic order resting on a lofty podium enriched with sculpture and connected one with the other by a magnificent flight of steps, the whole block measuring 125 ft. by 114 ft.^[136]

The Corinthian order is as essentially borrowed from the bell-shaped capitals of Egypt as the Doric is from their oldest pillars. Like everything they touched, the Greeks soon rendered it their own by the freedom and elegance with which they treated it. The acanthus-leaf with which they adorned it is essentially Grecian, and we must suppose that it had been used by them as an ornament, either in their metal or wood work, long before they adopted it in stone as an architectural feature.

As in everything else, however, the Greeks could not help betraying in this also the Asiatic origin of their art, and the Egyptian order with them was soon wedded to the Ionic, whose volutes became an essential though subdued part of this order. It is in fact a composite order, made up of the bell-shaped capitals of the Egyptians and the spiral of the Assyrians, and adopted by the Greeks at a time when national distinctions were rapidly disappearing, and when true and severer art was giving place to love of variety. At that time also mere ornament and carving were supplanting the purer class of forms and the higher aspirations of sculpture with which the Greeks ornamented their temples in their best days.

In Greece the order does not appear to have been introduced, or at least generally used, before the age of Alexander the Great; the oldest authentic example, and also one of the most beautiful, being the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (B.C. 335), which, notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, is one of the most beautiful works of art of the merely ornamental class to be found in any part of the world. A simpler example, but by no means so beautiful, is that of the porticoes of the small octagonal building commonly called the Tower of the Winds at Athens. The largest example in Greece of the Corinthian order is the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. This, however, may almost be called a Roman building, though on Grecian soil—having been commenced in its present form under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the second century B.C. by the Roman architect Cossutius, and only finished by Hadrian, to whom probably we may ascribe the greatest part of what now remains. Its dimensions are 135 ft. by 354 ft., and from the number of its columns, their size and their beauty, it must have been when complete the most beautiful Corinthian temple of the ancient world.

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135. Ancient Corinthian Capital. (From Branchidæ.)

Judging, however, from some fragments found among the Ionic temples of Asia Minor, it appears that the Corinthian order was introduced there before we find any trace of it in Greece Proper. Indeed, à priori, we might expect that its introduction into Greece was part of that reaction which the elegant and luxurious Asiatics exercised on the severer and more manly inhabitants of European Greece, and which was in fact the main cause of their subjection, first to the Macedonians, and finally beneath the iron yoke of Rome. As used by the Asiatics, it seems to have arisen from the introduction of the bell-shaped capital of the Egyptians, to which they applied the acanthus-leaf, sometimes in conjunction with the honeysuckle ornament of the time, as in Woodcut No. 135, and on other and later occasions together with the volutes of the same order, the latter combination being the one which ultimately prevailed and became the typical form of the Corinthian capital.

Although differing so essentially in plan, the general dimensions of the larger temples of the Greeks were very similar to those of the mediæval cathedrals, and although they never reached the altitude of their modern rivals, their cubic dimensions were probably in about the same ratio of proportion.

The following table gives the approximate dimensions, rejecting fractions, of the eight largest and best known examples:—

Juno, at Samos	346 feet long	190 feet wide = 65,740 feet.
Jupiter, at Agrigentum	360 feet long	173 feet wide = 62,280 feet.
Apollo, at Branchidæ	362 feet long	168 feet wide = 60,816 feet.
Diana, at Ephesus	348 feet long	164 feet wide = 57,072 feet.
Jupiter, at Athens	354 feet long	135 feet wide = 47,790 feet.
Didymæus, at Miletus	295 feet long	156 feet wide = 45,020 feet.
Cybele, at Sardis	261 feet long	144 feet wide = 37,884 feet.
Parthenon, at Athens	228 feet long	101 feet wide = 23,028 feet.

There may be some slight discrepancies in this table from the figures quoted elsewhere, and incorrectness arising from some of the temples being measured on the lowest step and others, as the Parthenon, on the highest; but it is sufficient for comparison, which is all that is attempted in its compilation.

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The Doric was the order which the Greeks especially loved and cultivated so as to make it most exclusively their own; and, as used in the Parthenon, it certainly is as complete and as perfect an architectural feature as any style can boast of. When first introduced from Egypt, it, as before stated, partook of even more than Egyptian solidity, but by degrees became attenuated to the weak and lean form of the Roman order of the same name. Woodcuts No. 136, 137, 138 illustrate the three stages of progress from the oldest example at Corinth to the order as used in the time of Philip at Delos, the intermediate being the culminating point in the age of Pericles: the first is 4·47 diameters in height, the next 6·025, the last 7·015; and if the table were filled up with all the other examples, the gradual attenuation of the shaft would very nearly give the relative date of the example. This fact is in itself sufficient to refute the idea of the pillar being copied from a wooden post, as in that case it would have been slenderer at first, and would gradually have departed from the wooden form as the style advanced.^[137] This is the case in all carpentry styles. With the Doric order the contrary takes place. The earlier the example the more unlike it is to any wooden original. As the masons advanced in skill and power over their stone material, it came more and more to resemble posts or pillars of wood. The fact appears to be that, either in Egypt or in early Greece, the pillar was originally a pier of brickwork, or of rubble masonry, supporting a wooden roof, of which 260the architraves, the triglyphs, and the various parts of the cornice, all bore traces down to the latest period.

Even as ordinarily represented, or as copied in this country, there is a degree of solidity combined with elegance in this order, and an exquisite proportion of the parts to one another and to the work they have to perform, that command the admiration of every person of taste; but, as used in Greece, its beauty was very much enhanced by a number of refinements whose existence was not suspected till lately, and even now cannot be detected but by the most practised eye.

136. Temple at Delos.

137. Parthenon at Athens.

138. Temple at Corinth.

The columns were at first assumed to be bounded by straight lines. It is now found that they have an entasis, or convex profile, in the Parthenon to the extent of 1⁄550 of the whole height, and are outlined by a very delicate hyperbolic curve; it is true this can hardly be detected by the eye in ordinary positions, but the want of it gives 261that rigidity and poverty to the column which is observable in modern examples.^[138]

In like manner, the architrave in all temples was carried upwards so as to form a very flat arch, just sufficient to correct the optical delusion arising from the interference of the sloping lines of the pediment. This, I believe, was common to all temples, but in the Parthenon the curve was applied to the sides also, though from what motive it is not so easy to detect.

Another refinement was making all the columns slope slightly inwards, so as to give an idea of strength and support to the whole. Add to this, that all the curved lines used were either hyperbolas or parabolas. With one exception only, no circular line was employed, nor even an ellipse. Every part of the temple was also arranged with the most unbounded care and accuracy, and every detail of the masonry was carried out with a precision and beauty of execution which is almost unrivalled, and it may be added that the material of the whole was the purest and best white marble. All these delicate adjustments, this exquisite finish and attention to even the smallest details, are well bestowed on a design in itself simple, beautiful, and appropriate. They combine to render this order, as found in the best Greek temples, as nearly faultless as any work of art can possibly be, and such as we may dwell upon with the most unmixed and unvarying satisfaction.

The system of definite proportion which the Greeks employed in the design of their temples, was another cause of the effect they produce even on uneducated minds. It was not with them merely that the height was equal to the width, or the length about twice the breadth; but every part was proportioned to all those parts with which it was related, in some such ratio as 1 to 6, 2 to 7, 3 to 8, 4 to 9, or 5 to 10, &c. As the scheme advances these numbers become undesirably high. In this case they reverted to some such simple ratios as 4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 7, and so on.

We do not yet quite understand the process of reasoning by which the Greeks arrived at the laws which guided their practice in this respect; but they evidently attached the utmost importance to it, and when the ratio was determined upon, they set it out with such accuracy, that even now the calculated and the measured dimensions seldom vary beyond such minute fractions as can only be expressed in hundredths of an inch.

Though the existence of such a system of ratios has long been suspected, it is only recently that any measurements of Greek temples 262have been made with sufficient accuracy to enable the matter to be properly investigated and their existence proved.^[139]

The ratios are in some instances so recondite, and the correlation of the parts at first sight so apparently remote, that many would be inclined to believe they were more fanciful than real.^[140] It would, however, be as reasonable in a person with no ear, or no musical education, to object to the enjoyment of a complicated concerted piece of music experienced by those differently situated, or to declare that the pain musicians feel from a false note was mere affectation. The eyes of the Greeks were as perfectly educated as our ears. They could appreciate harmonies which are lost in us, and were offended at false quantities which our duller senses fail to perceive. But in spite of ourselves, we do feel the beauty of these harmonic relations, though we hardly know why; and if educated to them, we might acquire what might almost be considered a new sense. But be this as it may, there can be no doubt but that a great deal of the beauty which all feel in contemplating the architectural productions of the Greeks, arises from causes such as these, which we are only now beginning to appreciate.

139. The Parthenon. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

To understand, however, the Doric order, we must not regard it as a merely masonic form. Sculpture was always used, or intended to be used, with it. The Metopes between the triglyphs, the pediments of the porticoes, and the acroteria or pedestals on the roof, are all unmeaning and useless unless filled or surmounted with sculptured figures. Sculpture is, indeed, as essential a part of this order as the acanthus-leaves and ornaments of the cornice are to the capitals and entablature of the Corinthian order; and without it, or without its place being supplied by painting, we are merely looking at the dead skeleton, the mere 263framework of the order, without the flesh and blood that gave it life and purpose.

It is when all these parts are combined together, as in the portico of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 139), that we can understand this order in all its perfection; for though each part was beautiful in itself, their full value can be appreciated only as parts of a great whole.

Another essential part of the order, too often overlooked, is the colour, which was as integral a part of it as its form. Till very lately, it was denied that Greek temples were, or could be, painted: the unmistakable remains of colour, however, that have been discovered in almost all temples, and the greater knowledge of the value and use of it which now prevails, have altered public opinion very much on the matter, and most people now admit that some colour was used, though few are agreed as to the extent to which it was carried.

It cannot now be questioned that colour was used everywhere internally, and on every object. Externally too it is generally admitted that the sculpture was painted and relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds; the lacunaria, or recesses of the roof, were also certainly painted; and all the architectural mouldings, which at a later period were carved in relief, have been found to retain traces of their painted ornaments.

It is disputed whether the echinus or carved moulding of the capital was so ornamented. There seems little doubt but that it was; and that the walls of the cells were also coloured throughout and covered with paintings illustrative of the legends and attributes of the divinity to whom the temple was dedicated or of the purposes for which it was erected. The plane face of the architrave was probably left white, or merely ornamented with metal shields or inscriptions, and the shafts of the columns appear also to have been left plain, or merely slightly stained to tone down the crudeness of the white marble. Generally speaking, all those parts which from their form or position were in any degree protected from the rain or atmospheric influences seem to have been coloured; those particularly exposed, to have been left plain. To whatever extent, however, painting may have been carried, these coloured ornaments were as essential a part of the Doric order as the carved ornaments were of the Corinthian, and made it, when perfect, a richer and more ornamental, as it was a more solid and stable, order than the latter. The colour nowhere interfered with the beauty of its forms, but gave it that richness and amount of ornamentation which is indispensable in all except the most colossal buildings, and a most valuable adjunct even to them.

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The Ionic order, as we now find it, is not without some decided advantages over the Doric. It is more complete in itself and less dependent on sculpture. Its frieze was too small for much display of human life and action, and was probably usually ornamented with lines of animals,^[141] like the friezes at Persepolis. But the frieze of the little temple of Nikè Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same style as those of the Doric order. It also happened that those details and ornaments which were only painted in the Doric, were carved in the Ionic order, and remain therefore visible to the present day, which gives to this order a completeness in our eyes which the other cannot boast of. Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace, and the whole when put together makes up a singularly pleasing architectural object. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Doric order will probably always be admitted to be superior, as belonging to a higher class of art, and because all its forms and details are better and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic.

140. Ionic order of Erechtheium at Athens.

The principal characteristic of the Ionic order is the Pelasgic or Asiatic spiral, here called a volute, which, notwithstanding its elegance, forms at best but an awkward capital. The Assyrian honeysuckle below this, carved as it is with the exquisite feeling and taste which a Greek alone knew how to impart to such an object, 265forms as elegant an architectural detail as is anywhere to be found; and whether used as the necking of a column, or on the crowning member of a cornice, or on other parts of the order, is everywhere the most beautiful ornament connected with it. Comparing this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), the only truly Asiatic prototype we have of it, we see how much the Doric feeling of the Greeks had done to sober it down, by abbreviating the capital and omitting the greater part of the base. This process was carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the Doric, as in the Propylæa, than when used by itself, as in the Erechtheium; still in every case all the parts found in the Asiatic style are found in the Greek. The same form and feelings pervade both; and, except in beauty of execution and detail, it is not quite clear how far even the Greek order is an improvement on the Eastern one. The Persepolitan base is certainly the more beautiful of the two; so are many parts of the capital. The perfection of the whole, however, depends on the mode in which it is employed; and it is perfectly evident that the Persian order could not be combined with the Doric, nor applied with much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all the Grecian forms of pillars.

141. Ionic order in Temple of Apollo at Bassæ.

142. Section of half of the Ionic Capital at Bassæ, taken through the volute.

When used between antæ or square piers, as seems usually to have been the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was appropriate and elegant; but when it was employed, as in the Erechtheium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), and put the volutes in the angles—which was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty.

The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met is in the internal order at Bassæ. There the three sides are equal, and are equally seen—the fourth is attached to the wall—and the junction of the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been surpassed. It has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it in elegance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a shoe was necessary to support wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian hall.

266Notwithstanding the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays, there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with colour to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked out with gold, relieved by coloured grounds, varied according to the situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that colours were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order.

In the Ionic temples at Athens the same exquisite masonry was used as in the Doric; the same mathematical precision and care is bestowed on the entasis of the columns, the drawing of the volutes, and the execution of even the minutest details; and much of its beauty and effect are no doubt owing to this circumstance, which we miss so painfully in nearly all modern examples.

As before mentioned, the Corinthian order was only introduced into Greece on the decline of art, and never rose during the purely Grecian age to the dignity of a temple order. It most probably, however, was used in the more ornate specimens of domestic architecture, and in smaller works of art, long before any of those examples of it were executed which we now find in Greece.

143. Order of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.

The most typical specimen we now know is that of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (Woodcut No. 143), which, notwithstanding all its elegance of detail and execution, can hardly be pronounced to 267be perfect, the Egyptian and Asiatic features being only very indifferently united to one another. The foliaged part is rich and full, but is not carried up into the upper or Ionic portion, which is, in comparison, lean and poor; and though separately the two parts are irreproachable, it was left to the Romans so to blend the two together as to make a perfectly satisfactory whole out of them.

In this example, as now existing, the junction of the column with the capital is left a plain sinking, and so it is generally copied in modern times; but there can be little doubt that this was originally filled by a bronze wreath, which was probably gilt. Accordingly this is so represented in the woodcut as being essential to the completion of the order. The base and shaft have, like the upper part of the capital, more Ionic feeling in them than the order was afterwards allowed to retain; and altogether it is, as here practised, far more elegant, though less complete, than the Roman form which superseded it.

144. Order of the Tower of the Winds, Athens.

The other Athenian example, that of the Tower of the winds (Woodcut No. 144), is remarkable as being almost purely Egyptian in its types, with no Ionic admixture. The columns have no bases, the capitals no volutes, and the water-leaf clings as closely to the bell as it does in the Egyptian examples. The result altogether wants richness, and, though appropriate on so small a scale, would hardly be pleasing on a larger.

The great example of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius differs in no essential part from the Roman order, except that the corners of the abacus are not cut off; and that, being executed in Athens, there is a degree of taste and art displayed in its execution which we do not find in any Roman examples. Strictly speaking, however, it belongs to that school, and should be enumerated as a Roman, and not as a Grecian, example.

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145. Caryatide Figure in the British Museum.

It has been already explained that the Egyptians never used caryatide figures, properly so called, to support the entablatures of their architecture, their figures being always attached to the front of the columns or piers, which were the real bearing mass. At Persepolis, and elsewhere in the East, we find figures everywhere employed supporting the throne or the platform of the palaces of the kings; not, indeed, on their heads, as the Greeks used them, but rather in their uplifted hands.

The name, however, as well as their being only used in conjunction with the Ionic order and with Ionic details, all point to an Asiatic origin for this very questionable form of art. As employed in the little Portico attached to the Erechtheium, these figures are used with so much taste, and all the ornaments are so elegant, that it is difficult to criticise or find fault; but it is nevertheless certain that it was a mistake which even the art of the Greeks could hardly conceal. To use human figures to support a cornice is unpardonable, unless it is done as a mere secondary adjunct to a building. In the Erechtheium it is a little too prominent for this, though used with as much discretion as was perhaps possible under the circumstances. Another example of the sort is shown in Woodcut No. 146, which, by employing a taller cap, avoids some of the objections to the other; but the figure itself, on the other hand, is less architectural, and so errs on the other side.

146. Caryatide Figure from the Erechtheium.

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147. Telamones at Agrigentum.

Another form of this class of support is that of the Giants or Telamones, instances of which are found supporting the roof of the great Temple at Agrigentum, and in the baths of the semi-Greek city of Pompeii. As they do not actually bear the entablature, but only seem to relieve the masonry behind them, their employment is less objectionable than that of the female figures above described; but even they hardly fulfil the conditions of true art, and their place might be better filled by some more strictly architectural feature.

The arrangements of Grecian Doric temples show almost less variety than the forms of the pillars, and no materials exist for tracing their gradual development in an historical point of view. The temples at Corinth, and the oldest at Selinus, are both perfect examples of the hexastyle arrangement to which the Greeks adhered in all ages; and though there can be little doubt that the peripteral form, as well as the order itself, was borrowed from Egypt, it still was so much modified before it appeared in Greece, that it would be interesting, if it could be done, to trace the several steps by which the change was effected.

In an architectural point of view this is by no means difficult. The simplest Greek temples were mere cells, or small square apartments suited to contain an image—the front being what is technically called distyle in antis, or with two pillars between antæ, or square pilaster like piers terminating the side walls. Hence the interior enclosure of Grecian temples is called the cell or cella, however large and splendid it may be.

148. Small temple at Rhamnus.

The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus (Woodcut No. 148), where the opening however can scarcely be called a doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of 4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of 270this. None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks. To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends, and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No. 149. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.

149. Plan of Temple of Apollo at Bassæ. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

150. Plan of Parthenon at Athens. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

151. Plan of the great Temple at Selinus. (From Hittorff, ‘Arch. Antique en Sicile.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell; beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each flank.

The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example; 271still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these temples.

Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. 152 and 154), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.

A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof between two ranges of column.

152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose, that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this, and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather. It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that without protection of some sort this would very soon have been obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only practically, 272but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose. The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once; while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface. The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most surpassingly beautiful.

The arrangement of the interior of Grecian temples necessarily depended on the mode in which they were lighted. No one will, I believe, now contend, as was once done, that it was by lamplight alone that the beauty of their interiors could be seen; and as light certainly was not introduced through the side walls, nor could be in sufficient quantities through the doorways, it is only from the roof that it could be admitted. At the same time it could not have been by a large horizontal opening in the roof, as has been supposed, as that would have admitted the rain and snow as well as the light; and the only alternative seems to be one I suggested some years ago—of a clerestory,^[142] similar internally to that found in all the great Egyptian temples,^[143] but externally requiring such a change of arrangement as was necessary to adapt it to a sloping instead of a flat roof. This could have been effected by countersinking it into the roof, so as to make it in fact 3 ridges in those parts where the light was 273admitted, though the regular slope of the roof was retained between these openings, so that neither the ridge nor the continuity of the lines of the roof was interfered with. This would effect all that was required, and in the most beautiful manner; it moreover agrees with all the remains of Greek temples that now exist, as well as with all the descriptions that have been handed down to us from antiquity.

153. Section of the Parthenon. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in

154. Part Section, part Elevation, of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

This arrangement will be understood from the section of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 153), restored in accordance with the above explanation, which agrees perfectly with all that remains on the spot, as well as with all the accounts we have of that celebrated temple. The same system applies even more easily to the great hexastyle at Pæstum and to the beautiful little Temple of Apollo at Bassæ, in Phigaleia (Woodcut No. 149), and in fact to all regular Greek temples. Indeed, it seems impossible to account for the peculiarities of that temple except on some such theory as this. Any one who studies the plan (Woodcut No. 149) will see at once what pains were taken to bring the internal columns exactly into the spaces between those of the external peristyle. The effect inside is clumsy, and never would have been attempted were it not that practically their position was seen from the outside, and 274this could hardly have been so on any other hypothesis than that now proposed. An equally important point in the examination of this theory is that it applies equally to the exceptional ones. The side aisles, for instance, of the great temple at Agrigentum were, as before mentioned, lighted by side windows; the central one could only be lighted from the roof, and it is easy to see how this could be effected by introducing openings between the telamones, as shown in Woodcut No. 154.

In the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius (Woodcut No. 196), as described by Vitruvius,^[144] the nave had two storeys of columns all round, and the middle was open to the sky. It is suggested, however, by Dr. Dorpfield that the temple in Vitruvius’s time was incomplete, and that subsequently when Hadrian erected the great chryselephantine statue in it the nave may have lost its hypæthral source of light. (In that case its light may have been introduced through the court or hypæthron in front of the cell, such as is shown on the plan in Woodcut No. 196.)

The Ionic temples of Asia are all too much ruined to enable us to say exactly in what manner, and to what extent, this mode of lighting was applied to them, though there seems no doubt that the method there adopted was very similar in all its main features.

155. Plan of Erechtheium. (From Stuart.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

156. Elevation of West End of Erechtheium. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The little Temple of Nikè Apteros and the temple on the Ilissus, were both too small to require any complicated arrangement of the sort, but the Ionic temple of Pandrosus was lighted by windows which still remain at the west end, so that it is possible the same expedient may have been adopted to at least some extent in the Asiatic examples. The latter, however, is, with one exception, the sole instance of windows in any European-Greek temple, the only other example being in the very exceptional temple at Agrigentum. It is valuable, besides, as showing how little the Greeks were bound by rules or by any fancied laws of symmetry.

As is shown in the plan, elevation, and view (Woodcuts Nos. 155, 156, 157), the Erechtheium consisted, properly speaking, of 3 temples grouped together; and it is astonishing what pains the architect 275took to prevent their being mistaken for one. The porticoes of two of them are on different levels, and the third or caryatide porch is of a different height and different style. Every one of these features is perfectly symmetrical in itself, and the group is beautifully balanced and arranged; and yet no Gothic architect in his wildest moments could have conceived anything more picturesquely irregular than the whole becomes. Indeed, there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Greek architecture was fettered by any fixed laws of formal symmetry: each detail, every feature, every object, such as a hall or temple, which could be considered as one complete and separate whole, was perfectly symmetrical and regular; but no two buildings—no two apartments—if for different purposes, were made to look like one. On the contrary, it is quite curious to observe what pains they took to arrange their buildings so as to produce variety and contrast, instead of formality or singleness of effect. Temples, when near one another, were never placed parallel, nor were even their propylæa and adjuncts ever so arranged as to be seen together or in one line. The Egyptians, as before remarked, had the same feeling, but carried it into even the details of the same building, which the Greeks did not. In this, indeed, as in almost every other artistic mode of expression, they seem to have hit exactly the happy medium, so as to produce the greatest harmony with the greatest variety, and to satisfy the minutest scrutiny and the most refined taste, while their buildings produced an immediate and striking effect on even the most careless and casual beholders.

157. View of Erechtheium. (From Inwood.)

276Owing to the Erechtheium having been converted into a Byzantine church during the Middle Ages, almost all traces of its original internal arrangements have been obliterated, and this, with the peculiar combination of three temples in one, makes it more than usually difficult to restore. The annexed plan, however, meets all the requirements of the case in so far as they are known. To the east was a portico of 6 columns, between two of which stood an altar to Dione, mentioned in the inscription enumerating the repairs in 409 B.C.;^[145] inside, according to Pausanias,^[146] were three altars, the principal dedicated to Poseidon, the others to Butes and Hephaistos. From its form, it is evident the roof must have been supported by pillars, and they probably also bore a clerestory, by which, I believe, with rare exceptions, all Greek temples were lighted.

158. Restored Plan of Erechtheium. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The dark parts remain; the shaded are restorations.

The Temple of Pandrosus was on a lower level, and was approached by a flight of steps, corresponding with which was a chamber, containing the well of salt water, and which apparently was the abode of the serpent-god Erechthonios, mentioned by Herodotus.^[147] The central cell was lighted by the very exceptional expedient of 3 windows in the western wall, which looked directly into it. Beyond this, on the south, was the beautiful caryatide porch, where, if anywhere within the temple, grew the olive sacred to Minerva. Unfortunately, our principal guide, Pausanias, does not give us a hint where the olive-tree grew, and on the whole I am inclined to believe it was in the enclosure outside the western wall of the temple,^[148] and to which a doorway leads 277directly from the Temple of Pandrosus, as well as one under the north portico, the use of which it is impossible to explain unless we assume that this enclosure was really of exceptional importance.

A history of Grecian architecture can hardly be considered as complete without some mention of the great Ephesian temple, which was one of the largest and most gorgeous of all those erected by the Greeks, and considered by them as one of the seven wonders of the world. Strange to say, till very recently even its situation was utterly unknown; and even now that it has been revealed to us by the energy and intelligence of Mr. Wood, scarcely enough remains to enable him to restore the plan with anything like certainty. This is the more remarkable, as it was found buried under 17 to 20 feet of mud, which must have been the accumulation of centuries, and might, one would have thought, have preserved considerable portions of it from the hand of the spoiler.

159. Plan of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, embodying Mr. T. Wood’s discoveries. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The annexed plan compiled from Mr. Wood’s researches embodies all the information he has been able to obtain. The dimensions of the double peristyle, and the number and position of its 96 columns, are quite certain. So are the positions of the north, south, and west walls of the cella; so that the only points of uncertainty are the positions of the four columns necessary to make up the 100 mentioned 278by Pliny,^[149] and the internal arrangement of the cella itself and of the opisthodomus.

With regard to the first there seems very little latitude for choice. Two must have stood between the antæ. The position of the other two must be determined either by bringing forward the wall enclosing the stairs, so as to admit of the intercolumniation east and west being the same as that of the other columns, or of spacing them so as to divide the inner roof of the pronaos into equal squares. I have preferred the latter as that which appears to me the most probable.^[150]

The west wall of the cella and the position of the statue having been found, the arrangement of the pillars surrounding this apartment does not admit of much latitude. Fragments of these pillars were found, but not in situ, showing that they were in two heights and supported a gallery. I have spaced them intermediately between the external pillars, as in the Temple of Apollo at Bassæ (Woodcut No. 149), because I do not know of any other mode by which this temple could be lighted, except by an opaion, as suggested for that temple; and if this is so they must have been so spaced. Carrying out this system it leaves an opisthodomus which is an exact square, which is so likely a form for that apartment that it affords considerable confirmation to the correctness of this restoration that it should be so. The four pillars it probably contained are so spaced as to divide it into nine equal squares.

Restored in this manner the temple appears considerably less in dimensions than might have been supposed from Pliny’s text. His measurements apply only to the lower step of the platform, which is found to be 421 ft. by 238. But the temple itself, from angle to angle of the peristyles, is only 342 ft. by 164, instead of 425 ft. by 220 of Pliny.

Assuming this restoration to be correct there can be very little doubt as to the position of the thirty-six columnæ cælatæ, of which several specimens have been recovered by Mr. Wood, and are now in the British Museum. They must have been the sixteen at either end and the four in the pronaos, shown darker in the woodcut.

From the temple standing on a platform so much larger than appears necessary, it is probable that pedestals with statues stood in front of each column, and if this were so, the sculptures, with the 279columnæ cælatæ and the noble architecture of the temple itself, must have made up a combination of technic, æsthetic, and phonetic art such as hardly existed anywhere else, and which consequently the ancients were quite justified in considering as one of the wonders of the world.

Very little now remains of all the various classes of municipal and domestic buildings which must once have covered the land of Greece, and from what we know of the exquisite feelings for art that pervaded that people, they were certainly not less beautiful, though more ephemeral, than the sacred buildings whose ruins still remain to us.

There are, however, two buildings in Athens which, though small, give us most exalted ideas of their taste in such matters. The first, already alluded to, usually known as the Tower of the Winds, is a plain octagonal building about 45 ft. in height by 24 in width, ornamented by 2 small porches of 2 pillars each, of the Corinthian order, the capitals of which are represented in Woodcut No. 141. Its roof, like the rest of the building, is of white marble, and of simple but very elegant design, and below this is a frieze of 8 large figures, symbolical of the 8 winds, from which the tower takes its name, they in fact being the principal objects and ornaments of the building, the most important use of which appears to have been to contain a clepsydra or water-clock.

160. Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. No scale.

The other building, though smaller, is still more beautiful. It is known as the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, and consists of a square base 12 ft. high by 9 ft. wide, on which stands a circular temple adorned by 6 Corinthian columns, which, with their entablature and the roof and pedestal they support, make up 22 ft. more, so that the whole height of the monument is only 34 ft. Notwithstanding these insignificant dimensions, the beauty of its columns (Woodcut No. 143) and of their entablature—above all, the beauty of the roof and of the finial ornament, which crowns the whole and is unrivalled for elegance even in Greek 280art—make up a composition so perfect that nothing in any other style or age can be said to surpass it.^[151] If this is a fair index of the art that was lavished on the smaller objects, the temples hardly give a just idea of all that have perished.

In extreme contrast with the buildings last described, which were among the smallest, came the theatres, which were the largest, of the monuments the Greeks seem ever to have attempted.

161. Plan of Theatre at Dramyssus. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The annexed plan of one at Dramyssus, the ancient Dodona, will give an idea of their forms and arrangements. Its dimensions may be said to be gigantic, being 443 ft. across; but even this, though perhaps the largest in Greece, is far surpassed by many in Asia Minor. What remains of it, however, is merely the auditorium, and consists only of ranges of seats arranged in a semicircle, but without architectural ornament. In all the examples in Europe, the proscenium,^[152] 281which was the only part architecturally ornamented, has perished, so that, till we can restore this with something like certainty, the theatres hardly come within the class of Architecture as a fine art.

The theatre of Dionysus at Athens, which was excavated and laid bare in 1862-63, measures only 165 ft. in its greatest width. Built on the south side of the Acropolis, the natural slope forming the rising ground was utilised for the foundations of the tiers of seats which, in some cases, and particularly at the back, were hewn in the rock; so that they were carried back 294 ft. from the centre of the orchestra. In the theatre of Epidaurus, which, according to Pausanias, was the most beautiful theatre in the world, the lines of the seats are continued on each side of the orchestra so as to form a horse-shoe on plan; the foundations of the stage, the projecting side wings with staircases on each side, and other buildings belonging to the stage are still preserved.

In Asia Minor some of the theatres have their proscenia adorned with niches and columns, and friezes of great richness; but all these belong to the Roman period, and, though probably copies of the mode in which the Greeks ornamented theirs, are so corrupt in style as to prevent their being used with safety in attempting to restore the earlier examples.

Many circumstances would indeed induce us to believe that the proscenia of the earlier theatres may have been of wood or bronze, or both combined, and heightened by painting and carving to a great degree of richness. This, though appropriate and consonant with the origin and history of the drama, would be fatal to the expectation of anything being found to illustrate its earliest forms.

Like the other Aryan races, the Greeks never were tomb-builders, and nothing of any importance of this class is found in Greece, except the tombs of the early Pelasgic races, which were either tumuli, or treasuries, as they are popularly called. There are, it is true, some headstones and small pillars of great beauty, but they are monolithic, and belong rather to the department of Sculpture than of Architecture. In Asia Minor there are some important tombs, some built and others cut in the rock. Some of the latter have been described before in 282speaking of the tombs of the Lycians. The built examples which remain almost all belong to the Roman period, though the typical and by far the most splendid example of Greek tombs was that erected by Artemisia to the memory of her husband Mausolus at Halicarnassus. We scarcely know enough of the ethnic relations of the Carians to be able to understand what induced them to adopt so exceptional a mode of doing honour to their dead. With pure Greeks it must have been impossible, but the inhabitants of these coasts were of a different race, and had a different mode of expressing their feelings.

162. View of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, as restored by the Author.

Till Sir Charles Newton’s visit to Halicarnassus in 1856 the very site of this seventh wonder of the world was a matter of dispute. We now know enough to be able to restore the principal parts with absolute certainty, and to ascertain its dimensions and general appearance within very insignificant limits of error.^[153]

283The dimensions quoted by Pliny^[154] are evidently extracted from a larger work, said to have been written by the architect who erected it, and which existed at his time. Every one of them has been confirmed in the most satisfactory manner by recent discoveries, and enable us to put the whole together without much hesitation.

163. Plan of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, from a Drawing by the Author. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Sufficient remains of the quadriga, which crowned the monument, have been brought home to give its dimensions absolutely. All the parts of the Ionic order are complete. The steps of the pyramid have been found and portions of the three friezes, and these, with Pliny’s dimensions and description, are all that are required to assure us that its aspect must have been very similar to the form represented in Woodcut No. 162. There can be little doubt with regard to the upper storey, but in order to work out to the dimensions given by Pliny (411 ft. in circumference) and those found cut out in the rock (462 ft.), the lower storey must be spread out beyond the upper to that extent, and most probably something after the manner shown in the woodcut.

The building consisted internally of two chambers superimposed the one on the other, each 52 ft. 6 in. by 42 ft.—the lower one being the vestibule to the tomb beyond—the upper was surrounded by a peristyle of 36 columns. Externally the height was divided into three 284equal portions of 37 ft. 6 in. each (25 cubits), one of which was allotted to the base—one to the pyramid with its meta—and one to the order between them. These with 14 ft., the height of the quadriga, and the same dimension belonging to the lower entablature, made up the height of 140 Greek feet^[155] given it by Pliny.

164. Lion Tomb at Cnidus. (From Newton.)

Though its height was unusually great for a Greek building, its other dimensions were small. It covered only 13,230 ft. The admiration therefore which the Greeks expressed regarding it must have arisen, first, from the unusual nature of its design and of the purpose to which it was applied, or perhaps more still from the extent and richness of its sculptured decorations, of the beauty of which we are now enabled to judge, and can fully share with them in admiring.

285Another, but very much smaller, tomb of about the same age was found by Mr. Newton at Cnidus, and known as the Lion Tomb, from the figure of that animal, now in the British Museum, which crowned its summit. Like many other tombs found in Asia and in Africa, it follows the type of the Mausoleum in its more important features. It possesses a base—a peristyle—a pyramid of steps—and, lastly, an acroterion or pedestal meant to support a quadriga or statue, or some other crowning object, which appropriately terminated the design upwards.

Several examples erected during the Roman period will be illustrated when speaking of the architecture of that people, all bearing the impress of the influence the Mausoleum had on the tomb architecture of that age; but unfortunately we cannot yet go backwards and point out the type from which the design of the Mausoleum itself was elaborated. The tombs of Babylon and Passargadæ are remote both geographically and artistically, though not without certain essential resemblances. Perhaps the missing links may some day reward the industry of some scientific explorer.

At Cyrene there is a large group of tombs of Grecian date and with Grecian details, but all cut in the rock, and consequently differing widely in their form from those just described. It is not clear whether the circumstance of this city possessing such a necropolis arose from its proximity to Egypt, and consequently from a mere desire to imitate that people, or from some ethnic peculiarity. Most probably the latter, though we know so little about them that it is difficult to speak with precision on such a subject.^[156]

These tombs are chiefly interesting from many of the details of the architecture still retaining the colour with which they were originally adorned. The triglyphs of the Doric order are still painted blue,^[157] as appears to have been the universal practice, and the pillars are outlined by red lines. The metopes are darker, and are adorned with painted groups of figures, the whole making up one of the most perfect examples of Grecian coloured decoration which still remain.

165. Rock-cut and structural Tombs at Cyrene. (From Hamilton’s ‘Wanderings in North Africa.’)

There is another tomb at the same place—this time structural—which is interesting not so much for any architectural beauty it possesses as from its belonging to an exceptional type. It consists now 286only of a circular basement—the upper part is gone—and is erected over an excavated rock-cut tomb. There seem to be several others of the same class in the necropolis, and they are the only examples known except those at Marathos, one of which is illustrated above (Woodcut No. 122). As before hinted, the Syrian example does not appear to be very ancient, but we want further information before speaking 287positively on this subject. No one on the spot has attempted to fix with precision the age of the Cyrenean examples; nor have they been drawn in such detail as is requisite for others to ascertain the fact. They may be as late as the time of the Romans, but can hardly be dated as prior to the age of Alexander the Great.

166. Tombs at Cyrene. (From Hamilton’s ‘North Africa.’)

We have nothing left but imperfect verbal descriptions of the domestic, and even of the palatial architecture of Greece, and, consequently, can only judge imperfectly of its forms. Unfortunately, too, Pompeii, though but half a Greek city, belongs to too late and too corrupt an age to enable us to use it even as an illustration; but we may rest assured that in this, as in everything else, the Greeks displayed the same exquisite taste which pervades not only their monumental architecture, but all their works in metal or clay, down to the meanest object, which have been preserved to our times.

It is probable that the forms of their houses were much more irregular and picturesque than we are in the habit of supposing them to have been. They seem to have taken such pains in their temples—in the Erechtheium, for instance, and at Eleusis—to make every part tell its own tale, that anything like forced regularity must have been offensive 288to them, and they would probably make every apartment exactly of the dimensions required, and group them so that no one should under any circumstances be confounded with another.

This, however, with all the details of their domestic arts, must now remain to us as mere speculation, and the architectural history of Greece must be confined to her temples and monumental erections. These suffice to explain the nature and forms of the art, and to assign to it the rank of the purest and most intellectual of all the styles which have yet been invented or practised in any part of the world.