Greek temples of Sicily

The Greek temples of Sicily are temples that were built by Greek settlers who started dating from the mid-8th century BC. Began to colonize Sicily .

Temple E in Selinunte

The most important Greek temples in Sicily are located in the old town ( Ortygia island ) and the new town (Neapolis) of ancient Syracuse , in Agrigento (the ancient Akragas) and in Selinunte . The oldest of these temples known to us is the Temple of Apollo in Syracuse, built around 575 BC. Was built. The Concordia Temple in Agrigento is one of the best preserved Greek temples of all.

history

Remains of the Victory Temple of Himera

Initially, the settlers built simple sanctuaries in the form of a megaron with one to three rooms one behind the other. No later than the 6th century BC. However, they also began building larger temples with ring halls.

The heyday of temple building in Sicily was the 5th century BC. BC, when after the victory of the Greeks over the Carthaginians in the battle of Himera in 480 BC The wealth of the Greek poleis increased through the spoils of war won in battle, the prisoners of war working as slaves and the reparations that Carthage had to pay. This heyday came to an end with the conquest of Sicily and the destruction of many temples by the Carthaginians at the end of the 5th century BC. Chr.

In later times no more large temples were built, only the older ones were partially repaired. After Sicily was incorporated into the Roman Empire , the Romans did not build their own temples in Sicily, but continued to use the existing Greek temples.

particularities

Elevation of the Concordia Temple

The Greek temples in Sicily are mostly built as peripteros in the Doric architectural style. So they mostly show the typical elevation of a 3 to 4-step substructure ( Krepis ), the columns with Doric capital , the entablature made of architrave and triglyphs - metope frieze and the protruding cornice with a triangular gable on the front and the back of the Temple. The floor plan shows the central cult building of the temple, the Naos , from Pronaos , Cella , Adyton and opisthodomos that of a portico, the peristasis is surrounded

Floor plan of Temple E in Selinunte

Even if the Greek settlers were in lively exchange with the mother country and influences in the architecture in both directions can be proven, the temples of Sicily also have peculiarities that distinguish them from the temples of the Greek mother country. Since the places where the temples were located in Sicily were usually not traditional places of god worship, the settlers tried to make their temples particularly large and splendid to compensate for this.

Unlike the temples of the Greek motherland, which are designed to provide a panoramic view, the Greek temples in Sicily are frontal in their design. The front side, mostly the east side, is provided with a wide flight of stairs , and in front of it lies a large sacrificial altar , which is particularly impressively preserved at the Temple of Hera in Agrigento. The communal ceremonies took place around this altar and cattle sacrifices were offered to the gods on it.

Color reconstruction of the Concordia temple

While many temples in the Greek motherland are built of marble , limestone was used as a building material for the Greek temples in Sicily . To protect the limestone from weathering and to give it a marble-like appearance, it was covered with a layer of stucco . In 1824, traces of paint were first discovered on parts of Temple B of Selinunte, which shook the thesis of pure white temple buildings, which was mainly advocated by Johann Joachim Winckelmann and which were then often imitated in classicism , and triggered the polychrome dispute. A color reconstruction of the Concordia temple, as it was shown on the scaffolding during the last maintenance work from 2005, shows the lower part up to the architrave in white, while the frieze and the triangular gable in particular are reproduced in strong red and blue.

Concordia temple, floor plan by Robert Koldewey

In the Greek temples of Sicily, the Adyton, which in the Greek motherland can only be found in archaic temples, was still used frequently in the classical epoch. The pronaos and cella are often not separated from each other by a partition, but rather, as in the Concordia temple, by two large pillars, inside of which stairs lead up to the roof.

Compared to the classic portico with 6 columns on the narrow and 13 columns on the long sides, as is common in motherland Greece, the Greek temples of Sicily have a more elongated shape with 6 × 14 or even 6 × 15 columns. Only the temples of Akragas have mostly 6 × 13 columns. This stretching is of particular benefit to the vestibules, ie the spaces between the column front and the pronaos or the opisthodom, which are usually 2 column yokes deep.

Segesta Temple

The Doric corner conflict was mostly treated differently in Sicily than in the mother country. The double corner contraction was used here more frequently than elsewhere, ie a gradual narrowing of the two outer column yokes, which creates a more harmonious overall impression, although this brings additional irregularities into the sequence of metopes and triglyphs . A very unusual solution was chosen for the Temple of Hera in Agrigento: On the sides and on the back wall it shows a simple corner contraction, while on the front side the central columnar yoke is widened instead of a corner contraction.

The Great Temple of Segesta is a special case among the Greek temples in Sicily , as Segesta was a city of the Elymers who otherwise had no temple buildings. Since only the ring hall is available, the opinion was held that it had no cella and that it was an open ring hall around an Elymic cult place. In the meantime, however, the cella has been reconstructed.

Chronological list

The following list shows the most important Greek temples in Sicily with their main architectural features in the order in which they were built.

The selection of temples is based on the standard works by Koldewey / Puchstein and Dieter Mertens listed under literature. It includes all the temples described by Koldewey / Puchstein and the temples that are described in more detail by Mertens and not just dealt with in a short paragraph.

In the table, the base area means the dimensions (front width × side length) of the stylobate . Figures marked with * are reconstructed values, as the stylobate has not been preserved.

Time of origin	temple	place	Construction type	Floor space	columns	Remarks
575 BC Chr.	Temple of Apollo	Syracuse	Doric peripteros	21.57 × 55.36 m	6 × 17	oldest known Greek temple in Sicily, excavated 1932–42, three-aisled cella, double row of front columns ( floor plan )
approx. 570-560 BC Chr.	Temple C	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	24.00 x 63.70 m	6 × 17	Parts erected again in 1925/27 ( floor plan )
560 BC Chr.	Olympieion	Syracuse	Doric peripteros	22.04 × 62.02 m	6 × 17	outside the city south of the source of the Ciane , only stylobate and 2 columns preserved ( floor plan )
6th century BC Chr.	Temple of Zeus	Agrigento				Existence on the Acropolis attested by Polybios, location unclear, suspected under the Cathedral of San Gerlando
6th century BC Chr.	Artemis Temple	Syracuse	Ionic peripteros	22.60 × 55.90 m *	6 × 14	Remains under the town hall north of the Temple of Athens
approx. 540 BC Chr.	Temple D	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	24.00 × 56.00 m	6 × 13
approx. 530 BC Chr.	Temple F	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	24.40 x 61.80 m	6 × 14	Walled up column spaces, double row of columns on the front side ( floor plan )
520-470 BC Chr.	Temple G	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	50.10 × 110.10 m	8 × 17	largest real ring hall temple, three-aisled cella ( floor plan )
around 500 BC Chr.	Temple of Heracles	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	25.34 x 67.00 m	6 × 15	8 columns erected in the 20th century ( floor plan )
Early 5th century BC Chr.	Athena temple	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	15.10 x 34.70 m	6 × 13	overbuilt with church S. Maria dei Greci ( floor plan )
around 480 BC Chr.	Olympieion	Agrigento	Doric temple with pseudoperistasis	56.30 x 112.60 m	7 × 14	Pseudoperistasis of pillars with pre-blinded half-columns, gaps closed by walls, telamons carry the entablature ( floor plan , elevation , model )
480 BC Chr.	Athena temple	Syracuse	Doric peripteros	22.20 x 55.45 m	6 × 14	rebuilt as a cathedral
480 BC Chr.	Olympieion or Temple of Athens	Himera	Doric peripteros	22.46 x 55.91 m	6 × 14	Erected after the victory in the Battle of Himera , hence also called "Tempio della Vittoria" (Victory Temple)
480-470 BC Chr.	Temple A	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	16.13 x 40.30 m	6 × 14
480-470 BC Chr.	Demeter temple	Agrigento	Doric Ante Temple	13.30 x 30.20 m	-	overbuilt with church S. Biagio ( floor plan )
470-450 BC Chr.	Temple E (Hera Temple)	Selinunte	Doric peripteros	25.30 x 67.80 m	6 × 15	Erected again in 1956 ( floor plan )
Middle of the 5th century BC Chr.	Dioskurentempel	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	13.86 × 31.70 m	6 × 13	Corner rebuilt in the 19th century
Middle of the 5th century BC Chr.	Temple L	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	17.20 × 38.80 m *	6 × 13
460-450 BC Chr.	Temple of Hera	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	16.90 x 38.15 m	6 × 13	Columns and architrave on the north side erected again in the 18th century ( floor plan )
2nd half of 5th century BC Chr.	Asclepius stamp	Agrigento	Doric pseudo double-sided temple	10.70 × 21.70 m	-
around 440 BC Chr.	Concordia temple	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	16.92 x 39.44 m	6 × 13	best preserved Greek temple in Sicily ( floor plan , color reconstruction )
around 430 BC Chr.	Hephaestus stamp	Agrigento	Doric peripteros	17.06 × 35.19 m *	6 × 13	only two truncated columns remain
approx. 430-420 BC Chr	Segesta Temple	Segesta	Doric peripteros	23.13 × 58.05 m	6 × 14	unfinished temple of the Elymians under Greek influence ( floor plan )
4th-3rd Century BC Chr.	Temple B	Selinunte	Prostylos	4.60 x 8.40 m	4th	Hellenistic temple with pronaos and square cella
2nd century BC Chr.	Oratory of the Phalaris	Poggetto San Nicola	ionic prostylos	5.30 x 8.50 m	4th

literature

Robert Koldewey , Otto Puchstein : The Greek temples in Lower Italy and Sicily . 1st vol. Text, 2nd vol. Panels. Asher, Berlin 1899.
Gottfried Gruben : The temples of the Greeks . 5th edition. Hirmer, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7774-8460-1 .
Dieter Mertens : Cities and Buildings of the Western Greeks . Hirmer, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7774-2755-1 .

Web links

Commons : Greek Temples of Sicily - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Polybios, Geschichte IX 27,3

[1] Polybios, Geschichte IX 27,3