A catalogue of sculpture in the Department of ... - Warburg Institute

THE TEMPLE AT PHEGALEIA. 271sculptures of Aegina, began excavations which were completedin 1812. The party included Cockerell and Hallerin the first season, and Haller, Stackelberg and Brondstedtin the second season. The sculptures found wereremoved to Zante, and were purchased by the BritishGovernment in 1814.The temple was visited by Pausanias, who describes itas being situated at the village of Bassae on Mount Cotylion,about five miles from Phigaleia. Pausanias statesthat the temple and its roof were alike built of stone,and that it might be counted among the temples of thePeloponnesus, second only to that of Tegea, for beauty ofmaterial and fineness of proportion. He adds that thetemple was dedicated to Apollo Epicurios (the Helper),because the god had stayed a plague at Phigaleia inthe time of the Peloponnesian war. The architect wasIctinos, the builder of the Parthenon (Paus. viii,, 41, 5).The date of the temple is therefore about 430 B.C.,although it is doubtful whether the plague in Arcadiawas connected with the more celebrated pestilence atAthens.The temple is built of the light grey limestone of thesurrounding mountains. The sculptures, tiles, lacunaria,and capitals of the interior architecture were all of marble,which was probably obtained in the neighbourhood. Theform of the building is that known as amphiprostyleperipteral hexastyle. The temple consisted of a centralcella with a pronaos and opisthodomos, and was surroundedby a Doric colonnade, having six columns at theends and fifteen columns at the sides. The pronaos andopisthodomos were each bounded by two Doric columnsbetween antae, surmounted by metopes. The cella containedten Ionic columns engaged in buttresses whichTowards the southconnected them with the side walls.end of the cella was a single Corinthian column, of