1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



137 



ON THE MODIFICATION AND ADAPTATION OF 



THE ORDERS OF THE GREEKS BY THE 



ROMANS AND MODERNS. 



By H. Fdlton, M.D. 



"All nations in the most advanced state of civilization have been unanimous in their 

 admiration of Grecian architecture." — The Earl of Aberdeen. 



The learned are agreed and we must agree with them, that the Greeks 

 derived their knowledge of architecture from Egypt, and its neighbouring 

 nations. We find them possessing three orders, all of great beauty ; and 

 although these orders differ from ea<:h other in many respects, yet, iu the 

 opinion of all architects both ancient and modern, they may be resolved 

 jato one elementary order — the Doric, which, there is every reason to 

 believe, was the original one. In the ruins of the temple of Amada, in 

 Nubia, we have a very near approach to the Greek example of the Doric 

 columns of the temple at Corinth, the earliest known example of the order 

 in a Greek dress; indeed, it requires but little addition to make the Nubian 

 column an example of (he Doric order, from which it does not differ so 

 much as the latter does from either the Ionic or Corinthian. Denon, in his 

 delineations of Egypt, gives a column composed merely of a fluted shaft 

 supporting a low architrave ; this shaft is precisely similar to those at 

 Pajstum and Agrigentum. But this inquiry, however interesting in itself, 

 strictly forms no part of our subject; we shall therefore dismiss it by 

 adding, that what the Greeks did we may also accomplish, and find in the 

 rich and almost unexplored field of Egyptian architecture many examples 

 of detail— particularly capitals— which are capable of being Grecianised 

 and adopted into modern practice ; an example of which is given, under the 

 name of the Victoriue order, in the Chil Engineer and Architect's Journal 

 for the year 1845, and is proposed as a substitute for the Roman Doric, 

 which intention it seems calculated to fulfil. 



The Greeks then had only three orders, and the Romans in making the 

 addition of two others, effected it, as regards one, by stripping the Doric 

 of all iis embellishments, altering its proportions, and supplying a base for 

 the formation of what is called the Tuscan. And the Composite can only 

 he considered as a variety of the Corinthian, or a combination of it and the 

 Ionic, and is not entitled to be received as a distinct order ; nor should 

 either the Tuscan or Composite be considered in our elementary works 

 except as mere modifications of the other orders. 



That the Romans felt the force and power of the Greek style is readily 

 proved by its extensive adoption throughout their empire, but that they 

 were not able to foster the adopted child with the care and affection of its 

 natural parent, is manifest from the deterioration it suffered in their hands. 

 The taste for, and knowledge of the fine arts amongst the Romans at the 

 time of the conquest of Greece were at a low ebb ; that warlike people 

 came, and saw, and admired, but did not acquire a true knowledge of the 

 grand and leading principles of the art as practised by the Greeks, either 

 in pamtmg or sculpture, and still less in architecture. Wealth poured its 

 tributary streams into the lap of all-conquering Rome ; everything that 

 riches could purchase was at their command ; and magnificent structures 

 were soon raised on the spot where formerly stood the rude hut of Romu- 

 lus ; and so great was the change effected, even in the lifetime of an indi- 

 Tidual, that, as Suetonius relates, Augustus found the city built of brick, 

 and left it of marble. The most distant conquered provinces felt the genial 

 influence of the newly.acquired taste, as the many ruins still existing in 

 Africa and (rans-alpine Gaul attest. Gold has a magnetic power to at- 

 tract, though perhaps not to create, genius; but the possession of wealth 

 does not always improve the taste, and although we see in the ruins of 

 X ossidonia what Greek artists could do in a foreign land when left un- 

 trammelled, yet under the influence of Roman patronage they were not 

 altogether so successful. It may have been observed that ignorant persons, 

 on bemg shown sketches of the three orders, invariably prefer the most 

 ornate; such a preference would also be given by a semi- barbarous people: 

 but those who love all the three cannot censure any for preferring Aglaia, 

 to Thaha and Euphrosyne-nay, we rather rejoice that they should be found 

 tojoin with us in admiring even one of our beloved Graces, although we 

 may be persuaded that to love one well, we must love all three. But the 

 Romans went further than a mere preference, and rejected the claims of 

 Stal re ' T^ m'" ""-^'fi^^""" "f ">e Doric is even worse than a 



due dTr' .'"k '""PP^^-^^'^'l^egrand-the sublime effect pre 



SIV, °K k' f '?, '^"''"''' "■" ""^ ^^^'« ^"'l constructed on the 

 principles to which the Greeks trusted for producing effect, they appa- 



rently cast this order aside ; in the first instance, leaving it for homeir 

 practise perhaps ; then its new patrons finding it, when deprived of all 

 embellishments, the least expensive, and, therefore, when magnificence 

 was not requisite, the best adapted for their purpose, may have turned it 

 into the order now called Tuscan, as spoken of by Vitruvius; and although 

 subsequently, in such erections as the temple of Hercules at Cori, we see 

 that some vague idea of its former state may have been entertained, yet in 

 Roman hands, neither ancient nor modern, has it up to the present day 

 been treated as if its real beauty were either felt or understood ; for the 

 thing which the Romans have left us, and the modern restorers of the 

 Greek style have served up to us as the Doric, is no more like the noble 

 order whose name it bears, than Alexander the coppersmith was to Alex- 

 ander the Great. 



Nor did the other orders altogether escape modification, as for instance 

 the capital of the Ionic, which, instead of presenting, as in the Greek, two 

 faces and two sides, is made, by the angular arrangement of the volutes, 

 to give four faces precisely similar. There is also a very striking differ- 

 ence between the flowing lines of the Greek and the spiral formation of 

 the volutes of the Roman Ionic. Our knowledge of the Greek Corinthinn 

 IS very scanty, but we may, at least, hope its capital, in the best of the 

 Roman examples, has in some measure escaped unscathed, although in 

 various other matters, such as the contour of the mouldings, the stylobate, 

 and the cornice, extensive alterations were made, both in the voluted and 

 foliated orders. 



Some person has called the Tuscan the modified or emasculated Doric ; 

 this idea must be grounded on the notion of Vitruvius, who likens the 

 Doric to a man robust and well-proportioned, for take away this character 

 from him or it, and you take away the virility— that is, according to John- 

 son, the physical character— of a man. The strength or characler of au 

 order depends on the proportion of its intercolumniation and height of the 

 shaft to the diameter of the column itself. Now the Tuscan, as given by 

 Palladio, has an intercolumniation from centre to centre of five diameters 

 and an elevation of seven, and, according to the same author, the Doric 

 has an intercolumniation of nearly four and " an elevation of eight or seven 

 and a half at least." Viola and Vignola give the same elevation, and 

 Scamozzi eight and a half, and the same intercolumniation as Palladio, 

 whilst the Athenian Doric has an intercolumniation from axis to axis of 

 little more than two diameters, and an elevatiun of about five and a half. 

 The ancient harridan, in modern times, finding that the blush of early 

 beauty has deserted her cheek, and that time has bleached her scanty 

 locks, seeks with pigments to give a colour to the one, and supplies the 

 place of the other wilh the stolen ringlets of youth : but do such dire ex- 

 pedients as the application of paint or the rape of the lode deceive any one 

 save herself? So it was also with Palladio and the rest when, with Vitru- 

 vius for their guide, they took the attenuated Tuscan and proceeded to 

 dress it up in the Doric garb, giving the shaft a kind of colour (as it were) 

 by fluting, and hanging a profusion of ringlets, i. e., triglyphs on the brow, 

 the frieze of the order. 



It is, however, to the credit of the ancient Romans that this modified 

 order, even when dressed iu the manly garb, found little favour wilh them ; 

 consequently, we have but few remains of it— some amphitheatres, the' 

 theatre of Marcellus, and the temple at Cori, being the only ones handed 

 down to us. Of the deterioration of the other orders, on which the Ro- 

 mans appear to have bestowed their patronage, our proofs are not so strong: 

 they were the orders which the Greeks, for the most part, used in cases 

 were magnitude— so essential to the full development of the Doric— was 

 not required ; hence examples of them were more likely to suffer from the 

 hand of time, and to offer to barbarians and others more portable materials 

 for the erection of their own temples and domiciles ; besides, in the age of 

 darkness and ignorance, when Grecian art was as it were eclipsed, men 

 would naturally view the vast remains of former times (the use of which, 

 as well as the means by which they were or could be eiecied, were totally 

 unknown to them,) as invested with something of a superstitious character 

 —the works of genii or giants, who, although unseen, had still the power 

 to avenge their overthrow ; to this may we not, in some measure, be in- 

 debted for those precious remains of the Doric order still existing ia 

 Greece and elsewhere, and to the absence of its protection ascribe°the 

 paucity of examples of the other orders in the same localities? 



It has been stated by an accomplished writeron architecture, Mr. Hosking, 

 that if two persons, acquainted with the Doric order, were desired each to 

 give a design of a Greek temple of any specified class (the dimensions of 

 a single column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it being 

 given), the designs would be exactly similar in size, arrangement, features^^ 



18 



