392 



GREECE 



GREEK ARCHITECTURE 



chius, Suidas, Photius did valuable work on 

 the classics. In fine, the post-classical period was 

 critical, not creative ; it cared more for matter than 

 for form, its poetry was based on classical models, 

 and was generally frigid and pedantic, as its learn- 

 ing, though spent upon the classics, was not unfre- 

 quently pedantic and puerile ; in two words, its 

 chief features are imitation and annotation. 



Compositions in modern Greek have been found 

 dating from before the fall of Constantinople, but 

 modern Greek literature is counted to have begun 

 after ' the conquest.' For the first three centuries, 

 however, we do not find prose works written in the 

 modern language. We find poetical versions of 

 Western romances, and we find the famous Klephtic 

 songs, the songs of the Greeks who, rather than 

 submit to Turkish rule, took to the mountains and 

 lived a life of liberty, if of brigandage. But the 

 prose works of this period are written in ancient 

 Greek. If the rule of the Turk produced the songs 

 of the Klephts, the dominion of Venice allowed of 

 the production of poems which possessed more 

 literary form though less poetical merit than the 

 Klephtic chants. Such were the Erotocritos of 

 Cornaro, an epic, or rather a pastoral poem, rather 

 lacking in interest, and only occasionally relieved 

 by a touch of imagination, and the Erophile of 

 Chortakis, a tragedy defective in form, though con- 

 taining lyrics of some value. In the 18th century 

 poetry declined to a still lower level ; and the 

 honour of literature was chiefly maintained by the 

 erudition of ecclesiastics, such as Lucaris, Miniatis, 

 Meletios, Theotokis, Bulgaris. With the 19th 

 century, however, began a new era in the history 

 of modern Greek literature, and this was mainly 

 the work of Corai's (q.v.), himself the greatest 

 name in the era which he inaugurated. Since 

 his time the number of authors Greece has pro- 

 duced is strikingly large, some writing in modern, 

 others in ' correct ' Greek. Of them we may men- 

 tion Panagiotis Sontsos, whose best work is con- 

 tained in his dramas ; Alexander Sontsos, the 

 satirist ; Rigas, the author of the song translated 

 by Lord Byron, 'Sons of the Greeks, arise,' and of 

 other poems which were the clarion whose notes 

 still echoed in 1821 and first roused Greece from her 

 slumbers ; Villara, the lyric poet ; Christopoulos, 

 the Anacreon of modern Greek ; Neroulos, the 

 tragedian, distinguished for the fire of his imagina- 

 tion and the force and vigour of his diction ; and 

 last, the great scholar and still greater poet, A. R. 

 Rangabe. 



On the land of Greece, see W. M. Leake, Travels in 

 Northern Greece ; "Wordsworth, Greece; Tozer, Geography 

 of Greece; Lolling, Hellenische Landeskunde und Topo- 

 yraphie ; Bent, Cyclades ; Freeman, Studies of Travel in 

 Greece and Italy ; Jebb, Modern Greece. On the his- 

 tory, works by Mitford, Thirlwall, Grote, Curtius, Holm, 

 Cox, Smith, Evelyn Abbott, Duruy, Fin lay (from the 

 Roman Conquest ), and Trikoupes ( the War of Independ- 

 ence, in Romaiv) ; Jevoiis, Athenian Democracy. On the 

 literature, books by Miiller, Col. Mure, Mahaffy, Sittl, 

 W. Christ, Susemihl, and the present author ; and for 

 modern Greek literature Rangabe, books by Miss Garnett 

 (on folk songs) and Miss M'Pherson (poetry). For old 

 Greek life, Becker's Charicles, and three works by Mahaffy. 

 For the people of modern Greece, Rennell Rodd's Customs 

 and Lore of Modern Greece, Miss Blunt's People of 

 Turkey. See also the articles 



Music. 



Alphabet. 

 Anthology. 

 Art. 

 Athens. 



Corinth. 

 Drama. 

 Government 

 Inscriptions. 



Mysteries. 



Mythology. 



Painting. 



Philosophy. 

 Poetry. 

 Sculpture 

 Theatre. 



Greek Architecture. The origin of what 

 is popularly called Greek architecture is, like the 

 origin of every art and science in that country, 

 mixed up with mythical and fabulous history. It 

 is divided into three styles, and each of these has its 

 mythical origin. Thus, the Doric is said to have 



been copied from the early wooden huts of the 

 aborigines ; the Ionic, which sprung up among the 

 Greek colonists in Asia Minor, to have been 

 modelled on the graceful proportions of the female 

 figure, as the Doric had been on the more robust 

 form of a man the volutes representing the curls 

 of the hair, the fluting the folds of the drapery, &c. 

 The story of the origin of the Corinthian style is 

 very pretty : a nurse had deposited in a basket on 

 the grave of a departed child the toys she had 

 amused herself with when alive. The basket was 

 placed accidentally on the root of an acanthus, and 

 in spring, when the leaves grew, they curled grace- 

 fully round the basket, and under a flat stone which 

 was laid on the top of it. Callimachus, the sculp- 

 tor, seeing it, caught the idea, and worked out at 

 Corinth the beautiful capital since called after that 

 city. 



Modern discoveries, have, however, shown that 

 Greece owed much to the earlier civilisation of the 

 countries which preceded it in history. To the 

 architecture of one or other of these, almost every 

 feature of Greek architecture can be traced. But 

 it is for the first idea only that the Greeks are 

 indebted to Egypt and Assyria ; whatever forms 

 they adopted, they so modified and improved as to 

 transform them into a new style. The so-called 

 Cyclopean or Pelasgian (q.v.) architecture was 

 wholly unconnected with the evolution of any style 

 of Greek architecture subsequently developed. Its 

 remains consist mainly of tombs or ' treasure- 

 houses ' underground chambers, vaulted with over- 

 lapping stones, and approached by a narrow passage 

 descending to the entrance-doorway. The interior 

 was sometimes ornamented with plates of bronze 

 attached to the masonry. The en trance- doorway 

 was of a conical form, the upper portion being some 

 times filled with sculpture, as in the well-known 

 Gate of the Lions at Mycenae. The ancient cities 

 and tombs of Greece have in recent years proved a 

 rich field of research. Schliemann's excavations at 

 Mycense and Tiryns have brought to light a great 

 number of specimens of very ancient art in the form 

 of terra-cotta work, gold and silver smiths' work, 

 and carved stonework. Whether native or im- 

 ported, these show a strong affinity with Assyrian 

 and other Eastern designs. The later Greek art 

 took its rise under the Dorians, after the return of 

 the Heraclidje about 1100 B.C. 



Greek architecture proper is divided into three 

 styles the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian (see 

 COLUMN, figs. 4, 5, 6). Of these the Doric is the 

 oldest. The earliest example which remains is the 



temple at Corinth, which was built about 650 B.C. 

 The remains of this temple show the various mem- 

 bers of the style fully developed, but they are all of 

 a massive and heavy description, strongly resem- 

 bling in this respect their prototype the architec- 

 ture of Egypt. There is now no doubt, although 

 the intermediate steps are lost, that the Doric style 



