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The Greek Conception of Divinity Expressed through Mainland Temple Architecture

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 Lucas Livingston November 28, 1998 

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        In the historic and prehistoric evidence of humanity we see a constant attempt to understand the nature of the world around us and how it interacts with us. One of the most ancient understandings of the nature of the world and all within it comes through the notion of divinity. Harboring a belief in the divine is an effort to understand not only the world, but also its relation to us. Religion is the organization and patterning of a conception of divinity. In many historical civilizations we see the reflection of religion in human creations. Temple architecture is only one creation through which religion and divinity are expressed, but it is potentially a powerfully persuasive medium, which can support tremendous intricacy of expression. Through an understanding of temple architecture, we can hope to have an insight into the nature of divinity in a particular religion. The mainland Greeks expressed their conception of divinity in many ways through the design and function of Archaic and Classical temples of the Doric order.

        If we seek to further our understanding of how the mainland Greeks conceived of the divine, it is necessary to look first at the emergence in design and function of the temple. Through this, we will see what the temple meant to the ancient mainland Greeks and how it reflected their understanding of the divine. Once I have discussed the conception of divinity expressed in emerging temple design and function, I will examine how this leads up to the Doric order and the effect early Archaic temples had on the Doric order's expression of divinity. Finally, I will examine features of monumentality, ritual procession, and pedimental sculpture of the Doric order and relate these features to the gods for whom they were built.

        In the 9^th and 8^th centuries B.C., the earliest roots, which would later evolve into the temples of the Greek mainland, appeared. The idea of the temple as a sacred location was at first expressed in the construction of open-air altars. Initially these altars sat alone without adornment or enclosure, which suggests an initial impulse not towards the creation of beautiful, glorious architectural monuments, but to offer sacrifice and worship to the divine. Religious sanctity did not lie in the architectural mode of expression, but in the site itself. These early altars were laid down in places, which the Greeks may have felt held some natural connection to the divine, places where their world of mortals could contact the realm of immortals (Rhodes 8). This already puts divinity in a place normally unknown and unreachable by mortals. Humanity must cater to these naturally sacred locations and use them as means to reach the divine.

        Alternatively, it was not unusual for the Greeks to isolate and make sacred rediscovered ancient Bronze Age sites as ancestral shrines and cultic sites for divinity. The Great Temple of the Mysteries just outside of Athens at Eleusis was constructed for the mystery cult of Demeter over the ruins of a Mycenaean megaron-shaped village structure (fig. 1). The use of this site by the ancestors of a heroic age convinced the 9^th century Greeks of its sacredness, simply as a result of its ancient tradition. This particular site was a location where a spiritual connection to the divine or one's ancestors could be made. Additionally, the presence of a previous megaron-shaped structure on this and other sites may have further influenced the emergence of the temple in its architectural design, when the Greeks followed the formal design of this Mycenaean predecessor.

        As I hope to express throughout this paper, whenever we can isolate specific choice or intention in representation, we can hope to understand the corresponding meaning behind this choice. During the Greek Dark Age (1100-900 B.C.), some continuity from the Mycenaean past was maintained in architectural design, such as at the above-mentioned Eleusis site, but this site was not continuously used, and it reflects a change in function for cultic needs. A particular building at the 10^th century village site of Nichoria shows similar continuity in architectural design, but again there is an adaptation of design for cultic, functional needs.¹ This apsidal, axial, megaron-shaped structure reflects both religious and domestic function, with its circular altar, votive objects, and animal bones for the sacrificial feasts (fig. 2). While in this respect it is reminiscent of the chieftain's central megaron of the Mycenaean cities, we see that a separation of religious and domestic functions, articulated through architectural barriers, has arisen. The altar stands in one chamber, while the remains of the ritual feasting rest in another. The separation of religious and domestic function at Nichoria suggests a change in the conception of religion and ritual in relation to domestic space. No longer is the same room of the chieftain's megaron used for domestic, political, and social human affairs and for the practice of ritual worship. This formal innovation reflects the movement of religion away from domestic living. This ‘movement away' becomes completely realized by the 8^th century in early temple structures, such as the mud-brick, thatch-roofed Temple of Hera at Perachora (fig. 3). The early Greek conception of divinity is expressed in this change as a force, which should be differentiated from everything else through isolation, individualization, and monumentality.

        I will now return to the earliest evidence for the emergence of the temple in function—the open-air altar—as I begin to examine the ideological features of monumentality of transition as it related to the Greek temple. When the open-air altar began to display the cult image or votive offerings, it became necessary to provide a structural enclosure to protect the image. This enclosure, while protecting the cult image, further articulates the boundary between secular and holy, between the mundane world of mortals and this sacred domain where one can experience a natural affinity with the immortal divine (Rhodes 20). Similarly, architectural features of the early Greek temple express a point of transition in approach. Archaeological evidence from the above-mentioned Temple of Hera at Perachora, the 8^th century Temple of Apollo Daphnephoros at Eretria on the island of Euboia, and the late 8^th century Argive Heraion in Argolis suggests the existence of a front porch with pillars or wooden posts and eaves (fig. 4). Immediately adopting the feature of a front porch, the early temple design creates a transitional space, where the approacher prepares herself and is conditioned for entering the sacred structure.² Furthermore, evidence of votive deposits within the Temple of Hera at Perachora and the Argive Heraion suggests that these early temples were, indeed, meant to be entered by the approacher during the practice of religion. Again, we can isolate a specific choice in the manner of representing the Greek temple, which can give us insight into the understanding of the mainland Greek's conception of divinity. In these few representative examples, we see the incorporation of monumentality of transitional—that is, the articulation of a notion which demands preparation and conditioning of a mortal for communing with an otherwise unapproachable, superior divinity. The transition experienced by the approacher is made monumental through the sanctity of the event, the experience of architectural vastness in size and space, and, in the later Doric order, through permanence of material.

        Monumentality is perhaps the most significant mode of architectural expression in mainland Doric order temples, which can give us an understanding of the mainland Greek's conception of divinity. We have already explored transitional monumentality in early temple design. Now I will illustrate monumentality in terms of permanence, inaccessibility, confrontation, and procession and their implications concerning divinity. The notion of permanence is expressed in emerging Doric and canonical Doric temple architecture through the use of the monumental material of stone and the terra cotta tiled roof. Unlike the perishable materials of their predecessors, the construction materials of emerging and later canonical Doric temples will not decompose with the passing of time. This permanence, celebrated on a massive scale, suggests an immortality in the temple structure not unlike that ascribed to the resident goddess or god.

        Further articulated on a massive, monumental scale in emerging Doric temple architecture is the notion of inaccessibility to the temple-proper and the cult image housed within. A sense of symmetry and balance is experienced from the outside of the temple through the continuous exterior colonnade and the nearly identical appearance of front and back (fig. 5). The ambiguity of front and back is not only emphasized by the column arrangement, but also by the similarity between the pronaos and the opisthodemos, two seemingly identical entranceways (Rhodes 54). Thus, the entrance of the temple is not immediately apparent to the viewer, even if one sees past the colonnade to the cella building, and one is thus dissuaded from entering. Entering into the temple is further dissuaded from when the temple is placed high up on a three-staired platform, characteristic of the Doric order. The high, stone platform supports the simple, largely undecorated columns, which in turn support the entablature—tall, thick, and heavy in proportion to the narrow horizontal expanse of the stylobate—and this is all capped off by the sharply sloping, upward rising roof (fig. 6)(Rhodes 56). The effect achieved from this is a sense of verticality rather than horizontality.³ The Doric temple rises out from its surrounding landscape into the sky above to loom over the heads of its viewers. The impression derived through this tremendously vertical design is a sensation of imposing formidability, grandeur, and majesty. This is a place for the divine, not mortals. The desire to impress upon the viewers such an imposing, formidable, majestic sensation leads us to understand the mainland Greek's conception of divinity as a similarly imposing, formidable, and majestic force—something not to be approached by mortals not easily.

        In the early 6^th century, Greek mainland temple architecture experienced a change by adopting the pediment in response to the desire to further express the conception of divinity through sculpture. This change in design marks the evolutionary threshold between the emerging Doric style of the early to late 7^th century and the canonical Doric style of the late 7^th, 6^th, and early 5^th centuries. While the Greek lyric poet Pindar credits the Corinthians with the invention of the pediment, evidence suggests an influential predecessor among the architecture of the Mycenaean Bronze Age. The tholos tombs of the Mycenaeans incorporate relieving triangles above the massive stone lintels of their entranceways. This architectural feature came about from a need to reduce the downward force on the lintel, but this effect is unnecessary for the Doric entablature, since it is sufficiently supported by the columns. The relieving triangle, nonetheless, may have been an influence on emerging Doric architecture. Since the 8^th century, tholos tombs had been unearthed, visible, and even sanctified as religious shrines, where mainland Greeks offered votive figurines to their heroic ancestors. Since the time of its construction, the Bronze Age Lion's Gate at Mycenae had been readily visibly and eagerly mythologized by the Greeks. The sculpture of the Lion's Gate achieves a confrontational effect quite like that of Doric pedimental sculpture, which I will further articulate below, through its depiction of a pair of symmetrical, static, outward-facing lions (fig. 7).

        Much like the expression of the might, formidability, and majesty of the divine through the articulation of inaccessibility and verticality in the Doric order, a similar conception of divinity is expressed through early pedimental sculpture. The innovation or adoption of the pediment by the Greeks serves no necessary structural function, such as that of the relieving triangle, within temple architecture. Mainland temple architecture had been maintaining the perfectly functional hipped roof for many decades and could have continued to do so. Additionally, the Doric entablature was fully supported by freestanding columns, unlike the heavy stone lintels of the tholos tombs and the Lion's Gate. The change from the archaic hipped roof structure to the pediment seems to have come about, then, as a result of and decision regarding formal and ideological expression and aesthetics—the desire for a field in which to present relief sculpture on the temple exterior. Again, whenever we can isolate specific choice or intention in representation, we can hope to understand the corresponding meaning behind this choice. While being a decorative feature of the exterior, pedimental sculpture is more a medium in which to express the conception of divinity. On some temples, the pedimental sculpture is representative of the patron deity, such as with the Temple of Artemis described below. Other temples, however, support pedimental sculpture with no immediate symbolic or iconographic connection to the patron deity, such as with the Athenian Hekatompedon and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The early 6^th century Temple of Artemis at Corfu is the earliest example of a temple with a pedimental roof (fig. 8). The central relief sculpture of both the east and west pediments depicts a gargantuan image of the Gorgon Medusa complete with snakes in hair, a grotesquely wicked grimace, and massive eyes, which stare out of the pediment to pierce and petrify the beholder below. On the Gorgon's flanks rest colossal, wild leopards, whose savage, bloodthirsty faces gaze straight out of the pediment at the viewer like the Gorgon in between. These figures show strong frontality and no interaction within the pediment. They breach the framework of their pedimental field and engage with the pious, humble viewer below. This central, predominant grouping relates no myth of the patron goddess Artemis. It stands here as a static confrontational emblem of her might, formidability, and majesty, her irrational, unknowable, ferocious nature.⁴ The viewer would not dare contest the deity and enter into her sacred home. Tucked away in the corners of the western pediment are diminutive, dynamic human figures. The actions portrayed by these figures represent fictional and mythological events. They relate a narrative to their viewer, who approaches from the west and proceeds to the altar at the front of the temple in the east. The narrative figures provide the viewer with a familiar, understandable, rational sensation, which contrasts the sensation experienced through the confrontational, monstrous, inhuman, irrational central grouping. The narrative figures thus appeal to the viewer and encourage his movement to continue around the temple exterior. One is not encouraged, however, to enter the temple, due to the inaccessibility of the interior from verticality, the ambiguity of front and back, and the foreboding central pedimental figures. Next, one arrives at the altar in the east and is confronted solely by the monstrous, colossal, foreboding Gorgon and leopards—symbols representative of the older, chthonic, pre-Olympian, inhuman conception of the divinity⁵ (Rhodes 46).

        Similarly, the pedimental sculpture of the late 6^th century Hekatompedon on the Athenian Acropolis expresses the inhuman, irrational conception of divinity and makes no direct symbolic or iconographic appeal to its Olympian patron goddess Athena, the Warrior Goddess of Wisdom and protector of Athens. The eastern pediment hosts a symmetrical pair of static, outward facing, confrontational snakes. In both pedimental fields are symmetrical pairs of static, colossal lions, which lean upon their latest kill, a bovine immortalized in a contorted position and gushing with blood (fig. 9). While the lions have their massive bodies in profile, their heads turn outward to reveal their savage, angry gaze forever engaged in a confrontational moment with the viewer below (Rhodes 51). The purpose of such horrible pedimental scenes at Corfu and the Athenian Acropolis was not one of decoration. The sensation experienced by the beholder would have been one of awe and dread. Similar to the notion of transitional monumentality, but achieving a different effect, this confrontational pedimental sculpture conditioned the beholder to be in the proper frame of mind for offering supplication to the deity, who is conceived of in this context as an abstract, inhuman, awesome force. The western pediment incorporates dynamic narrative figures at the periphery (fig. 9a). These figures are comparable in size to the central leonid grouping and thus not entirely overshadowed by the unfamiliar, irrational, monstrous expression of the deity's nature. They, nonetheless, achieve an effect similar to the narrative figures of the Temple of Artemis at Corfu, whereby the viewer is invited to approach and walk around the temple to the altar in the east.

        The altar at the eastern façade of the temple as the ultimate destination of the religious procession illustrates the culmination of a separation of mortal and immortal. Of significance is that the altar is not housed within the temple proper. Only the cult image resides in the temple. The notion of separation of domestic and religious function, as was illustrated above by the 10^th century site at Nichoria, is taken to the next level in Doric temple architecture to be a separation of human and divine even in the religious sphere. This expresses an absolute isolation and inaccessibility of the divinity. Once properly conditioned for the powerful spiritual event, we may be able to approach the altar and offer sacrifice and supplication to the divinity, but we can never truly be on an equal level with the divinity, nor enter the home of the gods.

        Beginning in the late 6^th century we see a change expressed through mainland Doric pedimental sculpture in the conception of divinity from the inhuman, abstract, awesome, emblematic, confrontational force to the more humanized, rational, anthropomorphic god. The Temple of Apollo at Delphi is our first evidence for this movement in pedimental sculpture. The eastern pediment, coming from the tradition of expressing the divinity in an abstract, awesome, and inhuman manner, depicts the characteristic lions gorging on their prey, but these figures have been pushed to the corners of the pediment. While they do gaze out to engage with and confront the viewer below, they are also far more preoccupied with their prey than the earlier leonid examples. Formerly the subjects of the central grouping, the lions now have given way to the human figures, who flank Apollo and his four-horse chariot (fig. 10). While the divinity is now represented in the familiar and understandable human form, the central grouping of figures seeks to achieve the traditional confrontational effect. Apollo, his horses, and the humans figures are all depicted with strong frontality, in contrast to the corner lions partially in profile and partially frontal. Similarly, they are static, emblematic, and for the most part disengaged with each other.⁶ These central figures stare out of the pediment to engage the viewer, but not to inspire a foreboding sense of dread and awe. The mainland Greek conception of divinity has moved towards an emblem of idealized human character: understandable, lawful, just, civilized.

        On the early classical Temple of Zeus at Olympia, built in the first half of the 5^th century, we see that the western pediment maintains the narrative element in its figures, but the entire field has been consumed by this storytelling in the movement towards the humanization of divinity. We see no outward-facing lions tearing apart a bovine, no Gorgon turning the beholder to stone. All traces of direct, confrontational engagement have been removed in favor of the narrative theme (Rhodes 94). The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs spans the entire width of the pediment, leaving room only for the central, nude, anthropomorphic Apollo, but even the representation of the god does not stare out to engage the viewer as with the Gorgon at Corfu (fig. 8). Apollo looks to his side and stretches out his arm to engage the battle narrative and aid the humans as they combat the rampaging centaurs (fig. 11). The humanization of divinity is expressed by the removal of the god's association with wild beasts and mythical monsters. In fact, the deity goes so far as to become an accessory to the destruction of the centaurs: mythical beasts particularly associated with wild, unruly, barbaric behavior reflected here as they attempt to abduct the human women. Thus, the anthropomorphic Apollo stands here defending humanity and its notions of law, order, and civilization. Immortals have become the almighty protectors and patrons of humanity and rational thought.

        Temples are the focal points of religious worship. Through architectural representation they can express religious ideology. From the late Dark Ages to the Classical Period and beyond, the Greeks had been consistently struggling with their understanding of humanity, divinity, and the world around them. And from the time of the earliest open-air altar to the Classical Doric temple and beyond, they have been struggling with expressing these conceptions in architecture. While by no means exhaustive, this analysis provides an insight into the conception of divinity and the evolution of this conception in terms of how the mainland Greeks chose to express it through their temple architecture.

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Works Cited

Biers, William R.  The Archaeology of Greece.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Grinnell, Isabel Hoopes.  Greek Temples.  New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1943.

Pollitt, J. J.  Art and Experience in Classical Greece.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Rhodes, Robin.  Architecture and Meaning on the Athenian Acropolis.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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