Greek temple architecture was notable for its conservatism, and this attitude continued in the Hellenistic period. But the new era also valued the dramatic, the startling. No building
Figure 18.2 Plan, Temple of Apollo, Didyma
Exemplifies better this typically Hellenistic combination of the traditional with the innovative than the Temple of Apollo at Didyma (Figures 18.2). Moreover, ruined though it is, the Temple of Apollo is the best surviving example of the colossal Ionic temples of East Greece. From it we get some idea of the dimensions, the grandeur of the Temples of Hera at Samos, of Artemis at Ephesus.
The temple is the principal building at Didyma, a religious center that contained, in addition to the major sanctuary of Apollo, a smaller sanctuary to Artemis, and numerous public buildings that catered to the welfare of pilgrims, such as stoas, shops, and baths. Immediately south of the temple was a stadium, the site of athletic events held every four years during the major festival, the Great Didymeia. The steps of the temple were used as seats; still visible are the many names carved on them by spectators.
Didyma belonged to the city of Miletus. Located some 20km to the south, Didyma was connected to Miletus by a processional route, a Sacred Way. Like Delphi, Didyma’s Apollo sanctuary featured an oracle, but here a sacred spring served as the stimulus. The first major temple, built in the Archaic period, was burned by the Persians in 494 BC when they sacked Miletus and suppressed the Ionian revolt.
During the following 150 years the temple lay in ruins and oracle did not operate. When Alexander the Great passed through, or so the story has it, the oracle and the sacred spring came back to life, and soon a new temple was begun, the temple one visits today. Designed by the architects Paionios of Ephesus and Daphnis of Miletus under the patronage of Seleukos, work continued throughout Classical antiquity, a period of 600 years. The temple was never finished. Traces of incomplete work can be seen on the exterior south walls of the temple: mason’s marks (here, large letters), rough-picked surfaces, and bosses for securing lifting ropes — all of which were normally removed in the final finishing of a wall. The oracle was permanently shut down in the late fourth century AD during the reign of Theodosius I, as were all pagan cults. The building itself suffered severely in subsequent earthquakes. The visible remains of the temple were brought to the attention of western Europe by travelers beginning in the mid-eighteenth century. Partial excavation followed during the nineteenth century, but the full clearing of the temple was not completed until 1906—13, under the direction of Theodor Wiegand for the Royal Prussian Museum in Berlin. After a long hiatus, the German Archaeological Institute resumed exploration in 1962, with a focus on areas outside the temple.
Didyma is located on a flat plain not far from the sea. A sacred grove of trees surrounded the temple on its west, north-west, and south-west side; and indeed the temple, with its many tall, slender columns, must have given the impression of a majestic forest. On the large stylobate, ca. 109m x 51m, a dipteral (double) colonnade around the cella was planned, ten columns wide on the short ends, twenty-one on the long, for a total of 108 columns, plus an additional twelve inside the pronaos. Three columns, nearly 2m in diameter, still stand to a height of 19.7m, giving an idea of the imposing vertical dimension of the temple. The normal order of construction was here reversed, with the colonnade coming after the cella. The variety of bases of the porch columns and their decorations demonstrates that columns were set up and completed in different periods, with many columns in fact never erected at all.
If the outside of the temple follows the traditions of Ionic architecture, the interior breaks from the typical, offering one surprise after another. At the back of the pronaos comes the first surprise: the expected entrance to the cella through the pronaos is blocked by an impossibly high threshold without steps. Above is a room, the east chamber, entered from inside the temple (see below); from here priests may have announced the oracular messages.
To proceed further into the temple, one must follow one of the two barrel-vaulted passages that descend from the far corners of the pronaos. One emerges from the dark, cave-like tunnels into daylight and another surprise: the cella of this temple has been replaced by an unpaved open-air court (ca. 53.5m x 21.5m) at a level much lower than that of the stylobate. At the far end of this adyton, or sacred area, stood a mini Ionic temple, the naiskos, which sheltered the bronze statue of the god, with either inside or just outside the sacred spring and laurel tree that inspired the oracle. The north walls of the adyton are carved with architectural plans, blueprints of a sort, to ensure uniformity in measurement and form: a network of finely incised lines, straight and curved, up to 20m long, that show design details of the columns and other architectural elements of the temple, their capitals and bases. These diagrams were incised ca. 250 BC when the adyton walls were built, well after the deaths of the initial architects, Paionios and Daphnis. Similar drawings have been found at Priene (Temple of Athena) and Sardis (Temple of Artemis) and in Egypt and in certain Gothic churches in western Europe (Chartres and Reims, for example).
From the west side of the adyton a broad flight of steps leads up to the east chamber, the room of the oracular messages. Staircases at each end give access to the roof. Some sculptural decoration was provided for the temple, notably pilaster capitals and frieze for the upper edge of the inner adyton walls, showing griffins. In Roman imperial times a frieze was carved for the exterior entablature. The head of Medusa appeared here as she had for centuries, protecting the temple against evil, but unlike the fierce gorgon of the early Archaic temple at Kerkyra, the Roman Medusa at Didyma is fleshy, petulantly frowning, and thoroughly tamed.
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