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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PER-PIG |
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PHIGALIA, or PHIGALEIA ( tykXca or f'tyaXeia; mod. Pavlitsa) , an ancient Greek city in the south-west angle of Arcadia, situated on an elevated rocky site, among some of the highest mountains in the Peloponnesusthe most conspicuous being Mt Cotylium and Mt Elasum; the identification of the latter is uncertain. In 6J9 B.C. Phigalia was taken by the Lacedaemonians, but soon after recovered its independence by the help of the Orasthasians. During the struggle between Achaeans and Aetolians in 221 B.C. it was held by Dorimachus, who left it on the approach of Philip V. of Macedon. In common with the other cities of Arcadia, it appears from Strabo to have fallen into utter decay under the Roman rule. Several curious cults were preserved near Phigalia, including that of the fish-tailed goddess Eurynome and the Black Demeter with a horse's head, whose image was renewed by Onatas. Notices of it in Greek history are rare and scanty. Though its existing ruins and the description of Pausanias show it to have been a place of considerable strength and importance, no autonomous coins of Phigalia are known. Nothing remains above ground of the temples of Artemis or Dionysus and the numerous statues and other works of art which existed at the time of Pausanias's visit, about A.D. 170. A great part of the city wall
One very important monument still exists in a fairly perfect state; this is a temple dedicated to Apollo Epicurius (the Pre-server), built, not at Phigalia itself, but at Bassae, 5 or 6 m. away, on the slope of Mt Cotylium; it commemorates the aid rendered by Apollo in stopping a plague which in the 5th century B.C. was devastating Phigalia. This temple is mentioned by Pausanias (viii. 41) as being (next to that of Tegea) the finest in the Peloponnesus, " from the beauty of its stone and the symmetry of its proportions." It was designed by Ictinus, who, with Callicrates, was joint architect of the Parthenon at Athens. Though visited by Chandler, Dodwell, Gell, and other English travellers, the temple was neither explored nor measured till 1811-1812, when C. R. Cockerell and some other archaeologists spent several months in making excavations there. After nearly fifty years' delay, Professor Cockerell published the results of these labours, as well as of his previous work at Aegina, in Temples of Aegina and Bassae (186o), one of the most careful restored by the Greek authorities. The figure shows the plan of the temple, which is of the Doric order, but has an internal arrangement of its cella unlike that of any other known temple. It stands on an elevated and partly artificial plateau, which commands an extensive view of the oak-clad mountains of Arcadia, reaching away to the blue waters of the Messenian Gulf. Unlike other Doric temples, which usually stand east and west, this is placed north and south; but it has a side entrance on the east. It is hexastyle, with fifteen columns on its flanks; thirty-four out of the thirty-eight columns of the peristyle are still standing, with the greater part of their architrave, but the rest of the entablature and both pediments have fallen, together with the greater part of the internal columns of the cella. It will be seen from the plan that these are very strangely placed, apparently without symmetry, as regards the interior, though they are set regularly opposite the voids in the peristyle. With the exception of one at the south end, which is Corinthian, the internal columns are of the Ionic order, and are engaged with the cellawall, forming a series of recesses, which may have been designed to contain statues. Another peculiarity of this interior is that these columns reach to the top of the cella in one order, not in two ranges of columns, one over the other, as was the usual Doric fashion. These inner columns carried an Ionic entablature, of which the frieze
part. The pediments and external metopes of the peristyle appear to have contained no sculpture, but the metopes within the peristyle on the exterior of the cella had sculptured subjects; only a few fragments of these were, however, discovered. The position occupied by the great statue of Apollo is a difficult problem. Cockerell, with much probability, places it in the southern portion of the cella, facing the eastern side door, so that it would be lighted up by the rays of the rising sun. The main entrance is at the northern end through the pronaos, once defended by a door in the end of the cella and a metal screen, of which traces were found on the two columns of the pronaos. There was no door between the posticum and the cella. The general proportions of the fronts resemble those of the Theseum at Athens, except that the entablature is less massive, the columns thicker, and the diminution lessall proportionally speaking. In plan the temple is long in proportion to its widthmeasuring, on the top of the stylobace, 125 ft. 7 in. by 48 ft. 2 in., while the Theseum (built probably half a century earlier) is about 104 ft. 2 in. by 45 ft. 2 in. The material of which the temple is built is a fine grey limestone (once covered with painted stucco), except the roof-tiles, the capitals of the cella columns, the architraves, the lacunaria (ceilings) of the posticum and pronaos, and the sculpture, all of which are of white marble. The roof-tiles, specially noticed by Pausanias, are remarkal>le for their size, workmanship, and the beauty of the Parianmarble of which they are made. They measure 2 ft. r in. by 3 ft. 6 in., and are fitted together in the most careful and ingenious manner. Unlike those of the Parthenon and the temple of Aegina, the apol or " joint-tiles " are worked out of the same piece of marble as the flat ones, for the sake of more perfect fitting and greater security against wet. Traces of painting on various architectural members were found by Cockerell, but they were too much faded for the colours to be distinguished. The designs are the usual Greek patternsthe fret, the honeysuckle, and the egg and dart. The sculpture is of the greatest interest
The frieze
Plan of the Temple at Bassae. two favourite subjects in Greek plastic art of the best period. They was still farther behind both New York
York
Streets.With the exception of a limited number of diagonal thoroughfares and of streets laid out in outlying districts in conformity with the natural contour of the ground the plan of the city is regular. Market Streetwhich Penn called High Streetis the principal thoroughfare east and west, Broad Street the principal thoroughfare north and south, and these streets intersect at right angles at City Hall
The wholesale district is centred at the east end of Market Street near the Delaware river. The best retail shops are farther west on the south side of Chestnut Street and on Market and Arch streets. Most of the leading banks and trust companies are on Chestnut Street and on Third Street between Chestnut and Walnut streets. Several of the larger office buildings and the stations of the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading railways are in the vicinity of the city hall
The principal structure is the city hall (or " Public Buildings ") one of the largest buildings in the world in ground space (el acres). It rises 548 ft. to the top of a colossal bronze statue (37 ft. high) of William Penn (by Alexander Calder
Spring Garden streets. The custom-house, on Chestnut Street, was designed by William Strickland (17871854), in his day the leading American architect. It was modelled after the Parthenon of Athens, was built for the Second United States Bank, was completed in 1824, and was put to its present use in 1845. Other prominent buildings ofare designed with wonderful ertility of invention, and life-like realism and spirit; the composition is arranged so as to form a series of diagonal lines or zigzags m, thus forming a pleasing contrast to the unbroken horizontal lines of the cornice and architrave. The various groups are skilfully united together by some dominant line or action, so that the whole subject forms one unbroken composition.The relief is very high, more than 31 in. in the most salient parts, [ and the whole treatment is quite opposite to that of the Parthenon frieze, which is a very superior work of art to that at Bassae. Many of the limbs are quite detached from the ground; the drill
Of the metopes, which were 2 ft. 8 in. square, only one exists nearly complete, with eleven fragments; the one almost perfect has a relief of a nude warrior, with floating drapery, overcoming a long-haired bearded man, who sinks vanquished at his feet. The relief of these is rather less than that of the frieze figures, and the work is nobler in character and superior in execution. In addition to the works mentioned in the text, see Leake, Morea (i. 490 and ii. 319; Curtius, Peloponnesos. i. 319; Ross, Reisen in Peloponeesos; Stackelberg, Der Apollo-Tempel zu Bassae (1826); Lenormant, Bas-reliefs du Parthenon et de Phigalie (1834) ; and Histories of Sculpture mentioned under GREEK ART. (J. H. M.; E. GR.) End of Article: PHIGALIA, or PHIGALEIA ( tykXca or f'tyaXeia; mod. Pavlitsa) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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