Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/114

 56 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. The Temples formed the most important class of buildings erected during this period, and a general description applicable to all is therefore given. Their points of difference with Egyptian examples have been already referred to. (Pages 15, 21, 28). They M^ere built with special regard to external effect, and were ornamented with sculpture of the highest class in order to form fitting shrines for the deities in whose honour they were erected. They were generally placed in a " temenos" or sacred enclosure, and consisted of a " naos " or cell, usually oblong in plan, in which was placed the statue of the god or goddess ; a treasury or chamber beyond and a front and rear portico, with flanking colonnades, the whole generally raised on a stylobate of three steps. In the larger temples were internal colonnades of columns placed over each other to support the roof (Nos. 18 h, 20, 23, 25, 28 a, b, and 31). On the two end fagades above the columns a triangular- shaped pediment, usually but not always filled with sculpture, terminated the simple span roof (Nos. 16 a, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, and 31 a). These roofs were constructed of timber and covered with marble slabs ; the ends of the overlapped joints being provided with ante-fixae at the eaves (Nos, 16 d, 20 h, j, and 44 n). The door was almost always placed in the centre of the end wall, behind the portico of columns, and frequently planned so that the sun might enter and light up the statue opposite. The general absence of windows in the temples, that at Agrigentum being the only exception (No. 28 o), has given rise to many theories as to how light was admitted. The method of lighting by a clerestory concealed in the roof which is favoured by Mr. Fergusson (No. 25 a), can be seen practically in Sir Arthur Blomfield's restoration of S. Peter, Eaton Square, London. Another theory by Herr Botticher is also shown (No. 25 b). The temple was occasionally " hypaethral," that is to say, there was an opening in the roof which admitted air and light to the central portion of the naos or cell. The use of an hypaethral opening has been often refuted, but it appears to have been used in the larger temples as in that of Jupiter Olympius at Athens (No. 18 j) (see Vitruvius), and in the Ionic Temple of Apollo- Didyma;us, near Miletus, as mentioned in Strabo (lib. xiv.). The temple was the house of the local god, being merely a glorified dwelling-house, and some hold that the opening in the centre of an ordinary house must have had some counterpart in that of the divinity. Both alike were developed out of the smoke- hole of the primitive hut ; the whole development being ably traced in an article on " domus " in Daremberg et Saglio, " Diet, des Antitjuitds." An extant hypaethral opening is that of the Pantheon, Rome (Nos. 54, 55). Many authorities hold that light was obtained solely through