Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/291

 be in doubt, as it was the name always given to the hall or ambulatory through which a person passed to the cells. The Pronaos was also, though rarely, called Prodomus. ([IpMswi. Philostr. Vit. Apoll, ii. 10.) But as to the Opisthodomus there has been great differences of opinion. There seems, however,

good reason for believing that the Greeks used the word Opisthodomus to signify a corresponding-hall in the back-front of a temple; aand that as Pronaos, or Prodomus, answered to the Latin anticum, so Opisthodomus was equivalent to the Latin posticum. m wfi [to! »)■<«] v,Nl&v>ai, ml ri xiItiitif irMMtofUt, Pollni, i. 6; omp. ^v tsEi vpsKdiit ■■1 TM dvurMMfUNi, Diod. dt. 41.) Lucian (Herod. 1) describes Herodotus as reasing his history to the assembled Greeks at Olympia from the Opisthodomus of the temples of Zeus. If we suppose Herodotus to have stood in the hall or ambulatory leading out of the back portico, the description is intelligible, as the great crowd of auditors might then have been assembled in the portico and on the steps below; and we can hardly imagine Lucian could have conceived the Opisthodomus to be an inner room, as some modern writers maintain. Other passages might be adduced to prove that the Opisthodomus in the Greek temples ordinarily bore the sense we have given to it (comp. Paus. v. 13. § 1, 16. § 1); and we believe that the Opisthodomus of the Parthenon originally indicated the same part, though at a later time, as we shall see presently, it was used in a different signification.

The Hecatompedon must have been the eastern or principal chamber of the cella. This follows from its name; for as the whole temple was called Hecatompedon, from its being 100 feet broad, so the eastern chamber was called by the same name from its being 100 feet long (its exact length is 98 feet 7 inches). This was the naos, or proper shrine of the temple; and here accordingly was placed the colossal statue by Pheidias. In the records of the treasures of the temple the Hecatompedon contained a golden crown placed upon the head of the statue of Nike, or Victory, which stood upon the hand of the great statue of Athena, thereby plainly showing that the latter must have been placed is this division of the temple. There has been considerable dispute respecting the disposition of the columns in the interior of this chamber; but the removal of the Turkish Mosque and other incumbrances from the pavement has now put an end to all doubt upon the subject. It has already been stated that there were 19 columns on each side, and 3 on Che western return; and that upon them there was an upper row of the same number. These columns were thrown down by the explosion in 1687, but they were still standing when Spon and Wheler visited Athens. Wheler says, "on both sides, and towards the door, is a kind of gallery made with two ranks of pillars, 22 below and 23 above. The odd pillar is over the arch of the entrance which was left for the passage." The central column of the lower row had evidently been removed in order to erect an entrance from the west, and the "arch of the entrance" had been substituted for it. Wheler says a "kind of gallery," because it was probably an architrave supporting the rank of columns, and not a gallery. (Pennee, p. 6.) Recent observations have proved that these columns were Doric, and not Corinthian, as some writers had supposed, in consequence of the discovery of the fragment of a capital of that order in this chamber. But it has been conjectured, that although all the other columns were Doric, the central column of the western return, which would have been hidden from the Pronaos by the statue, might have been Corinthian, since the central column of the return of the temple at Bassae seems to have been Corinthian. (Penrose, p. 5.)

If the preceding distribution of the other parts of the temple is correct, the Parthenon must have been the western or smaller chamber of the cella. Judging from the name alone, we should have naturally concluded that the Parthenon was the chamber containing the statue of the virgin goddess; but there appear to have been two reasons why this name was not given to the eastern chamber. First, the length of the latter naturally suggested the appropriation to it of the name of Hecatompedon; and secondly, the eastern chamber occupied the ordinary position of the adytum, containing the statue of the deity, and may therefore have been called from this circumstance the Virgin's-Chamber, though in reality it was not the abode of the goddess. It appears, from the inscriptions already referred to, that the Parthenon was used in the Peloponnesian war as the public treasury; for while we find in the Hecatompedon such treasures as would serve for the purpose of ornament, the Parthenon contained bullion, and a great many miscellaneous articles which we cannot suppose to have been placed in the shrine alongside of the statue of the goddess. But we know from 