During his journey around Greece, Pausanias (8.41.8) was struck by the beauty of the temple of Apollo at Bassai, a remote site in the highlands of Arkadia. Here, Apollo and his sister Artemis were provided with twin temples in the seventh century. An Archaic temple of Aphrodite stood on the summit of Mt. Kotilion in the same precinct. Pan was worshiped here too, and like the more famous Arkadian peak of Lykaion, all of Mt. Kotilion seems to have been considered sacred space.40 Many Arkadians who served as professional mercenaries (epikouroi) made offerings of miniature armor and weapons for Apollo, who had the dual titles of Bassitas and Epikourios (of Allies): helmets, shields, corselets, and spear-heads. In the fifth century, they raised the money for a magnificent new temple to be built by Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon. Iktinos’ temple, still standing today, is Doric on the outside with an interior Ionic colonnade and a sculpted frieze depicting Centaurs fighting Lapiths and Greeks fighting Amazons. It conservatively retained some of the features of its predecessor, such as its extra length and north-south orientation. A single column with a very early Korinthian capital was placed at the focal point of the cella where one would expect the cult statue to stand. This column may have had cultic significance, since we know that Apollo was sometimes worshiped in the form of a pillar. But the temple also possessed an aduton, or inner room, which was separated from the cella only by this column. An entrance created in the east side of the structure allowed the morning sun to enter the aduton (most temples are oriented east-west, and receive the sun through the main entrance). The aduton may have held the larger than life-size bronze statue of Apollo Epikourios that was created for the temple, but later moved to Megalopolis.41
World History
