Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/304

 272 GllECIAi^ AECIHTECTURE. Part I. 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. Tombs. 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 Avere 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 dejiartment of Sculpture than of Architecture. In Asia jVIinor there are some im}>ortant tombs, some built and others cut in the rock. Some of the latter have been described before in sjjeaking 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 wiiat induced them to adoj^t so excejitional a mode of doing honor to their dead. AVith ])ure Greeks it nmst have been impossible, but the inhabitants of these coasts were of a different race, and had a different mode of expressing their feelings. Till Mr. 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.i The dimensions quoted by Pliny 2 are evidently extracted from a larger work, said to have been written by the architect who erected it and Avhich 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. Sufiicient remains of the quadriga, which crowned the monument. It will not h<> iioccssary to enter here | published hy me on the subject, to which into all the details of this restoration. ! the reader is referred. They will be found in a separate work 2 m^^ j^^t. xxxvi. 5.