Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/295

only four of these are in front; the two others are placed, one in each flank, before a corresponding anta in the wall on either side of the door. These columns are all standing. They are about 3 feet higher, and nearly 6 inches greater in diameter, than those in the eastern portico. It must not, however, be inferred from this circumstance that the northern portico was considered of more importance than the eastern one; since the former appeared inferior from its standing on lower ground. Each of these porticoes stood before two large doors ornamented with great magnificence.

The southern portico, though also called prostasis in the inscription, was of an entirely different character. Its roof was supported by six Caryatides, or columns, of which the shafts represented young maidens in long draperies called ai Kopai in the inscription. They are arranged in the same manner as the columns in the northern portico.—namely,

four in front, and one on either anta. They stand upon a basement eight feet above the exterior level; the roof which they support is flat, and about 15 feet above the floor of the building. The entire height of the portico, including the basement, was little more than half the height of the pitched roof of the temple. There appears to have been no access to this portico from the exterior of the building. There was no door in the wall behind this portico; and the only access to it from the interior of the building was by a small flight of steps leading out into the basement of the portico between the Caryatid and the anta on the eastern flank. All these steps may still be traced, and two of them are still in their place. At the bottom of them, on the floor of the building, there is a door opposite the great door of the northern porch. It is evident, from this arrangement, that this southern portico formed merely an appendage of that part

of the Erechtheium to which the great northern door gave access. A few years ago the whole of this portico was in a state of ruins, but in 1846 it was restored by M. Piscatory, then the French ambassador in Greece. Four of the Caryatides were still standing; the fifth, which was found in an excavation, was restored to its former place, and a new figure was made in place of the sixth, which was, and is, in the British Museum.

The western end of the building has no portico before it. The wall at this end consisted of a basement of considerable height, upon which were four Ionic supporting an entablature. These four columns had half their diameters engaged in the wall, thus forming, with the two antae at the corners, five intercolumniations, corresponding to the front of the principal portico. The wall behind was pierced with three windows in the spaces between the engaged columns in the centre.

The frieze of the building was composed of black

Eleusinian marble, adorned with figures in low relief in white marble; but of this frieze only three portions are still in their place in the eastern portico.

With respect to the interior of the building, it appears from an examination of the existing remains that it was divided by two transverse walls into three compartments, of which the eastern and the middle was about 24 feet each from east to west, and the western about 9 feet. The last was consequently a passage along the western wall of the building, at one end of which was the great door of the northern portico, and at the other end the door of the staircase leading to the portico of the Caryatides. There can, therefore, be little doubt that this passage served as the pronaos of the central compartment. It, therefore, appears from the ruins themselves that the Erechtheium contained only two principal chambers. This is in accordance with the statement of Pausanias, who says (i. 26. § 5) that the Erechtheium was a double building (tlnr^JHw lAnifia).