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G R E E K A R C H I T E C T U R E

B A C K G R O U N D A N D I N F L U E N C E S
The ancient Greek
civilization thrived around
the Mediterranean Sea from
the 3rd millennium to the
1st century BC, known for
advances in philosophy,
architecture, drama,
government, and science.
The term “ancient Greece”
refers to both where Greeks
lived and how they lived
long ago. Geographically, it
indicates the heartland of
Greek communities on the
north coast and nearby
islands of the Mediterranean
Sea.
The most famous period of ancient Greek civilization is called the Classical Age, which
lasted from about 480 to 323 BC. During this period, ancient Greeks reached their
highest prosperity and produced amazing cultural accomplishments. Unlike most other
peoples of the time, Greeks of the Classical Age usually were not ruled by kings. Greek
communities treasured the freedom to govern themselves, although they argued about the
best way to do that and often warred against each other. What Greek communities shared
were their traditions of language, religion, customs, and international festivals, such as
the ancient Olympic Games.
The city-states of ancient Greece fell to Roman conquerors in 146 BC. When Rome split
in the 4th century AD, Greece became part of its eastern half, the Byzantine Empire. The
Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453. Long after ancient Greece lost its
political and military power, its cultural accomplishments deeply influenced thinkers,
writers, and artists, especially those in ancient Rome, medieval Arabia, and Renaissance
Europe. People worldwide still enjoy ancient Greek plays, study the ideas of ancient
Greek philosophers, and incorporate elements of ancient Greek architecture into the
designs of new buildings. Modern democratic nations owe their fundamental political
principles to ancient Greece, where democracy originated. Because of the enduring
influence of its ideas, ancient Greece is known as the cradle of Western civilization. In
fact, Greeks invented the idea of the West as a distinct region; it was where they lived,
west of the powerful civilizations of Egypt, Babylonia, and Phoenicia.
The Hellenistic (“Greek-like”) Period gets its name from the greater knowledge of Greek
language and culture brought to the Middle East through Alexander’s conquests and from the
kingdoms established by his generals after his death.
All the areas where Greeks lived were already Roman provinces by the time Augustus (63
BC-AD 14) established the Roman Empire in 27 BC. Greek cities generally retained their
traditional political organization, while Roman colonies in mainland Greece founded by
Augustus and his predecessor, Julius Caesar, mimicked the political system of Rome.
In 395 the Roman Empire split in two because protecting its vast territory against Germanic
and Persian raiders became impossible for a single ruler. The dividing line fell between
present-day Italy and mainland Greece. The Greeks in the west dwindled away, suffering
along with their non-Greek neighbors as Germanic invaders gradually took over that part of
the empire. In the eastern half, called the Byzantine Empire, Greeks maintained their
language and culture. Christianity became their faith, after Constantine’s religious
conversion in 312.

Government: Democracy gave an equal vote to every man who was liable for military
service. In the most famous democracy, Athens, this included every freeborn male over 18
years old. Athenian democracy shared authority by choosing most government officials from
the citizenry through a lottery and imposing term limits. Only the most sensitive positions in
military and financial affairs were filled by election. Various other city-states also had
democracies, but little evidence exists about them.
Economy: Throughout its long history ancient Greece’s economy depended on agriculture
and trade. Agricultural commodities were traded abroad. Besides grain, oil, and wine, trade
centered on natural resources such as metals and timber, luxury goods from jewels to spices,
and craft products from painted vases to bronze mirrors. The Greeks traded ideas as well as
goods across the water, acquiring an alphabet, architecture, and religious ideas from
Egyptian and Middle Eastern civilizations such as Babylonia and Phoenicia.

People and Society: The distinguishing features of ancient Greek society were the division
between free and slave, the differing roles of men and women, the relative lack of status
distinctions based on birth, and the importance of religion.

Religion: Traditional Greek religion was pagan polytheism, meaning that it included many
gods and other supernatural beings. Greeks inherited many of their ideas about the gods
from the Middle East. Their basic belief remained constant: People must honor the gods to
thank them for blessings received and to receive blessings in return. Greeks considered the
gods human-like in form and emotions. City-states built temples to honor the gods
protecting their territory and people.
Philosophy: The first Greek philosophers were interested in theoretical science. The Greek
philosophers Thales and Anaximander, who lived in the 6th century BC, reached the
revolutionary conclusion that the physical world was governed by laws of nature, not by the
whims of the gods. Pythagoras, who also lived in the 6th century BC, taught that numbers
explained the world and started the study of mathematics in Greece. These philosophers
called the universe cosmos, meaning “a beautiful thing,” because it had order based on
scientific rules, not mythology. Therefore, the philosophers believed in logic. Their
insistence that people produce evidence for their beliefs opened the way to modern science
and philosophy. Plato’s complicated works argued universal truths did exist and that the
human soul made the body unimportant. His pupil Aristotle (384-322 BC) turned away from
theoretical philosophy to teach about practical ethics, self-control, logic, and science.
Aristotle's works became so influential that they determined the course of Western scientific
thought until modern times. The Golden Age of Greek science came in the Hellenistic
period, with the greatest advances in mathematics. The geometry theories published by
Euclid about 300 BC still endure. Archimedes (287-212 BC) calculated the value of pi and
invented fluid mechanics. Aristarchus, early in the 3rd century BC, argued that the earth
revolved around the sun, while Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the
earth. Also in the 3rd century BC, Ctesibius invented machines operated by air and water
pressure; Hero later built a rotating sphere powered by steam. Military technology vaulted
ahead with the invention of huge catapults and wheeled towers to batter down city walls.
Art and Sculpture: The types of paintings were wall,
panel and vase paintings. Greeks painted pottery and
turned an everyday item into art. Mycenaean vases
featured lively designs of sea creatures and dizzying
whorls.
By the Classical period, Greeks were carving statues in
motion and in more relaxed stances. Their spirited
movement and calm expressions suggested the era's
confident energy. Statues of gods could be 12 m (40 ft)
high and covered with gold and ivory, such as Phidias’s
Athena in the Parthenon temple at Athens.
The Temple: The most characteristic Greek building
is the colonnaded stone temple, built to house a cult
statue of a god or goddess, that is, a statue to whom
people prayed and dedicated gifts. Developed in the
Archaic and Classical periods, the typical temple had a
rectangular inner structure known as a cella, which
was normally divided by two interior rows of columns.
The cult statue usually stood at the rear of this room.
Most temples faced east, and visitors entered on that
side through a colonnaded front porch. The side walls
of the cella extended forward onto the porch and two Temple of Hephaistos
columns stood either between the projecting walls (in
antis) or in front of them (prostyle). A back porch gave
symmetry to the whole, but was usually cut off from
the interior of the cella by a solid wall. Completely
surrounding this inner core was a continuous line of
columns called a peristyle. The best surviving
examples of Greek temples are the Temple of
Hephaistos (5th century BC) overlooking the Athenian
agora and temples in southern Italy and Sicily from the
6th and 5th centuries.
Temple of Poseidon
Typical Greek Temple Plan
Temple of Athena Polias at Priene
Greek Order: By the end of the 7th century BC, two
major architectural styles, or orders, emerged that
dominated Greek architecture for centuries: Doric and
Ionic. The Doric order developed on the Greek
mainland and in southern Italy and Sicily, while the
Ionic order developed a little later than the Doric
order, in Ionia and on some of the Greek islands. In
addition to Doric and Ionic, a third order, the Aeolic,
developed in northwestern Asia Minor, but died out by
the end of the Archaic period, and a fourth, the
Corinthian, emerged late in the 5th century BC.
No matter what order it belonged to, a temple facade
was made up of three main parts, the steps, the
columns, and the entablature (the part that rested on
the columns). Each of these parts also had three parts.
There were three steps leading into the temple, the
topmost of which was called the stylobate, and each
column typically consisted of a base, shaft, and capital.
The entablature consisted of an architrave (plain
horizontal beam resting on the columns), a frieze,
which corresponded to the beams supporting the
ceiling, and a cornice, a set of decorative moldings
that overhung the parts below.
Doric Order: The Doric order was the simplest and sturdiest of
the three orders. Its tapering columns rest directly on the stylobate.
Doric columns have no base. Shallow parallel grooves called
flutes rise from the bottom to the top of the shaft and emphasize
its function as a vertical support. Sharp ridges divide the flutes. At
the top of the shaft a fluted ring called the necking provides a
transition to the column’s capital. The Doric capital consists of a
rounded, cushionlike element called the echinus, and a horizontal
square element called the abacus, which bears the load of the
building above.
The Doric architrave is a plain beam left undecorated so as not to
disguise its function. Above it, the Doric frieze consists of
alternating triglyphs and metopes. Triglyphs are thick grooved
panels that help support the weight of the structure above. Temple of Hera at Olympia
Metopes are thinner panels that do no work in holding up the
temple and hence invite decoration in the form of painting or
sculpture.
Overhanging the parts below is the decorative cornice molding.
Like an eave it helps keep rainwater clear of the building. Above
the horizontal cornice a low, pitched roof rises to produce a
triangular pediment at either end of the temple. Sculpture fills the
pediments of many Doric temples. The simplicity of the Doric
order clearly emphasizes the structural function of each part.
Ionic Order: The Ionic order is distinguished from the Doric
primarily by its column and frieze. The Ionic column rests on an
elaborate curving base rather than directly on the stylobate. The
column shaft usually has deeper flutes and is more slender than
the Doric. The height-to-base ratio of early Ionic columns was 8 to
1, compared with a ratio between 4 to 1 and 6 to 1 for Doric
columns. The typical Ionic capital has two spiral volutes, elements
that resemble partly unrolled scrolls. These straddle a small band
at the top of the shaft, usually carved with an elaborate decorative
pattern. The Ionic capital looks different from the sides than from
the front or back. This difference caused problems in columns that
stood at the corners, where volutes had to slant at a 45-degree
Treasury of Siphnians
angle so that their spiral pattern would look the same from the
front of the temple as from the sides.
The Ionic architrave, unlike the plain Doric architrave, consists of
three narrow bands. The frieze above it is often decorated with
sculpture and is continuous, not divided into triglyphs and
metopes as in the Doric order. Multiple rows of moldings decorate
the Ionic cornice. They are generally carved in more intricate
patterns than in Doric entablatures, and may include a row of
square “teeth” called dentils. Over all, Ionic is a more ornamental
Temple of Artemis
and graceful style than Doric, but it lacks the clarity and power of
the Doric style. As a result, ancient critics regarded the Doric
order as masculine and the Ionic as feminine.
Corinthian Order: The Corinthian order resembles Ionic in most aspects, but Corinthian
columns have tall capitals shaped like an upside-down bell and are covered with rows of
acanthus leaves and small vinelike spirals called helixes. The first known Corinthian column
stood alone inside the cella of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae (429?-405? BC).
Indeed, the Corinthian order was at first used only for columns inside buildings—it did not
appear externally until the 4th century BC. Its use in exterior temple colonnades did not become
widespread until Roman times.
City Planning and Houses: Even before the start of the Classical period in the early 5th
century BC, the Greeks had begun to lay out some cities in a gridlike plan, with streets
regularly intersecting at right angles. By the 4th century BC, carefully planned cities and
civic spaces had become the rule in ancient Greece. Around 350 BC, for example, the
people of Priene moved from an old, haphazardly laid-out town to a new, more regular
one, even though the sloping ground on which it was built made right angles awkward.
Greek houses varied, but in the 5th and 4th centuries BC two standard plans emerged.
Typical 5th- and 4th-century houses in Olynthus and then 2nd-century houses on the
island of Delos had small rooms arranged in a rectangular plan around a colonnaded
interior courtyard, often with a covered veranda facing onto it from one or two sides. A
second type of house, found in Priene, also focused on an interior courtyard. But instead
of a collection of small rooms, the main living area consisted of a large rectangular hall
that opened onto a columned porch. Smaller rooms for servants, storage, or cooking
opened off the other sides of the courtyard. In the Hellenistic period, housing types
became more diverse, but houses of wealthy people might feature marble thresholds,
doorways, and columns; mosaic floors depicting humans or animals; and plastered walls
modeled and painted to look like fine stonework.
Acropolis: In many ways the Doric and Ionic orders both reached their zenith in the late-5th-
century buildings on the Acropolis in Athens. Athenians used both Doric and Ionic styles in
many of their buildings, possibly because although Athens was in mainland Greece, where
the Doric order was more prevalent, Athenians had settled Ionia.
The Athenian Acropolis is a natural limestone hill that in the Bronze Age was fortified for
the city’s defense and in the Archaic period was transformed into a major religious
sanctuary.
A campaign centered on the Acropolis began with the Parthenon (447-432 BC). The
temple they designed was unusually large, about 31 by 70 m (102 by 230 ft). Eight columns
marked the front and rear facades, and 17 columns ran along each side. The cella had two
rooms, east and west, each accessible from a porch. In the larger, eastern room stood a
statue of Athena Parthenos. The Parthenon was built as a monument to the goddess Athena
and to Athens, and testifies to the Athenians' desire to create a monument of unparalleled
beauty. The columns were slender and elegant, with a height 5.5 times their diameter. The
harmonious proportional relationship of each part to the whole was determined through
mathematical formulae. The temple is richly adorned with sculpture—two pediments filled
with statues, 92 carved metopes, numerous sculpted roof-ornaments, and a continuous Ionic
frieze atop the cella walls of this otherwise Doric building.
The most impressive features of the Parthenon’s design are its many optical refinements.
Some scholars believe that architects in ancient Greece made subtle adjustments in their
designs to overcome optical illusions that they believed would mar the perfection of their
buildings. For example, a long horizontal line, such as the stylobate, appears to sag when
many vertical lines (the columns) rest on top of it. To correct for this sag in the middle, the
Parthenon’s architects gave the stylobate and other major horizontal lines a slight upward
curve. Because of a similar optical illusion, a perfectly straight column may appear to curve
inward. To correct for this, architects added a slight swelling in the taper of the columns.
Another adjustment was a slight inward tilt of the columns. The corner columns were made
slightly thicker than the others to prevent them from seeming spindly when seen against the
backdrop of the sky, rather than the building.
The Parthenon was only one of the monuments in
Pericles’s building program for the Acropolis. On
the north side stood an Ionic temple known as the
Erechtheum. Among its many sacred objects, the
Erechtheum housed the Athenians’ most sacred
statue, an ancient wooden image of Athena Polias
(the name for Athena as goddess of the city). The
Erechtheum was begun in the 430s or 420s and
was mostly complete by 405 BC. It is laid out in
an unusual asymmetrical plan. A six-columned
porch on the eastern facade is mirrored by six
engaged Ionic columns on the western facade,
which has no porch. Columned porches on the
north and south sides are not centered, but are
placed toward the western end of the building. The
northern porch is larger than that on the south, and
awkwardly extends beyond the west side of the
building. The southern porch, sometimes called
the Porch of the Maidens, has six marble maidens
called caryatids that support the entablature in
place of columns. The irregular plan of the
Erechtheum can probably be explained by a need
for it to incorporate several sacred places of
worship already on the site.
The Propylaea (437-432 BC) was a
monumental structure that served as the
main gateway to the Acropolis on its steep
western approach. Like the Parthenon, the
Propylaea combines the Doric and Ionic
orders. Its west and east facades are Doric
and recall the proportions of the Parthenon,
while Ionic columns line a taller central
passageway between them. The architect
Mnesicles designed asymmetrical wings to
the north and south of the Propylaea’s
central block. Perched on a small
outcropping just to the southwest of the
Propylaea is the Temple of Athena Nike
(420s BC), a tiny, elegant, Ionic structure
with a richly sculpted frieze and two
(mostly lost) pediments.
The 4th century BC was also the first great age of
Greek theater construction. In the 5th century BC
actors performed the tragedies of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripedes in a modest open-air
theater, the Theater of Dionysus, on the south slope of
the Acropolis. In its original form, the theater
consisted of a round area called an orchestra
(meaning "dancing floor"), where the performance
took place, and a seating area on the natural curve
of the slope above. Some seats may have been of
wood. Behind the orchestra a small wooden
building provided scenic backdrops, a place to
change costumes, and doors for dramatic
entrances. Between 338 and 326 BC the Theater of
Dionysus was rebuilt on a grand scale in stone, with
a rising fan of stone seats on the hillside, a roughly
semicircular performance area, and a permanent
stone stage building. An even more impressive
stone theater survives mostly intact at Epidaurus
(350? BC) and is still used today. Designed by
Polyclitus the Younger, it has excellent acoustics
and provided the model for many later Hellenistic
theaters.
Conclusion
A recurring feature of Western art and architecture has been the rise of
movements that imitate the images, artistic character, and architectural forms
of ancient Greece to establish their own good taste and authority. The
tendency to stage such Greek revivals is detectable as early as imperial Rome.
Romans filled their environment with original works imported from Greece and
with reproductions or variants of those works.
Knowledge of Greek art and architecture passed to later Europeans by way of
Rome, which altered and elaborated upon Greek originals. During the Middle
Ages (5th to about 15th centuries) people made no real distinction between
Greek and Roman styles.
The Renaissance, a term derived from an Italian word meaning “rebirth,” was
a period during which both the artistic forms and the ideals of Classical
antiquity were revived and renewed. It began in Italy about 1400, spread
north, and continued until about 1600. References to Classical art,
architecture, and mythology were extremely common in the Renaissance.
Later periods of European art are full of works that have classical subjects or
have been created in a neoclassical style.
Fifty years before Elgin, the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann
wrote that “There is only one way for the moderns to become great and,
perhaps, unequalled: by imitating the Ancients.” Although this attitude is no
longer in favor, there have been many times in the history of Western art and
culture when it was. Even today, the ways we think about, represent, and
perceive the world are still largely founded upon the achievements of the
ancient Greeks.

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