eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Initial researches took place in the eighteenth century. The first, albeit ultimately
unsuccessful, expedition into Arkadia was led by the Frenchman J Bocher. This was an
attempt to find the temple of Apollo at Bassae. Pausanias had written that the architect who
had designed the Parthenon had also designed the Temple at Bassae (8.41.7-8) and
presumably, the possibility of finding a building that rivalled the Athenian temple was
overwhelmingly enticing in the latter half of the 18th century. This is particularly pertinent
when the expedition is set against the background of Stuart & Revett’s delineation of
antiquities in Greece (1762-1816) and Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art amongst the
Greeks (1764). Although these works concentrated on Athens, they set the tone for other
contemporary works and encouraged the view that the past of Greece, including that of
Arkadia, belonged to a Golden Age. Any remains found in Arkadia could be used as other
exemplars of excellence in art.
Interest in Arkadia and the temple of Bassae re-emerged in earnest in 1811 when two English
architects C. R. Cockerell and John Foster along with European counterparts from Germany
and Denmark set out on an expedition to finally locate the ancient temple. Like Bocher
before him, Cockerell’s Arkadian expedition, was especially motivated by the passage in
Pausanias that referred to the architect of the Parthenon (8.41.7-8). However, by this time
there was added incentive: the Elgin Marbles had arrived in Britain in 1807 and were seen as
the embodiment of excellence in ancient art. It was in accordance with these sculptures from
the Parthenon that other examples of ancient Greek and Roman art were judged (Jenkyns
1980, p.5). The possibility that something similar was awaiting discovery at Bassae was too
much to resist, despite tales of malaria and marauding bandits. Subsequently, a frieze was
discovered at the site, duly acquired and shipped back to England where it was sold to the
British Museum. It now resides in a room adjoining those containing the Elgin marbles
(rooms 16 and 18 respectively).
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