James Fergusson

“ To us, who only think of getting the full value of our money in whatever we do, it seems difficult to understand why so much labour and such careful art should have been bestowed on a frieze which was to be placed at a height of 80 feet from the spectator’s eye.25 But the Greeks slurred nothing, and seemed to have felt an innate satisfaction in knowing that a work was perfect and true, even if the eye could not grasp it, which must have been the case with many of the minuter proportional ratios which they considered so important. ”

“ In no building, ancient or modern, do I know any situation where statues would be so advantageous to the architecture, and on the other hand where the architecture would assist so advantageously in heightening the effect of the sculpture.26
In the tomb discovered by Mr. Falkener at Denzili, and which is evidently a copy of the Mausoleum, the pyramid is supported by just such a range of steles as have been introduced here, but with this curious peculiarity, that instead of the statues being placed between the piers, one is sculptured in mezzo rilievo on each face of the stele. ”

“ The building is also especially interesting, because it is more complicated in its parts and more nearly approaches the form of civil architecture than anything that has yet come to our knowledge. Almost all the Greek buildings hitherto explored are Temples, generally formal and low in their outline. For the first time, we find a genuine two-storied building, which, though covering only half the area of the Parthenon, is twice its height, and contains a variety of lessons and suggestions it would be in vain to try to extract from mere templar buildings. ”

“ It is so unlikely that the Greeks would have allowed their system to break down for so small a quantity as one inch and one-fifth in 40 feet, that we may feel certain—if this difficulty exists at all—that it is only our ignorance that prevents our perceiving how it was adjusted. If it should prove that the cymatium we have got is the larger one, and that consequently this difference does exist, the solution will probably be found in the fact of the existence of two roof stones, with the abnormal dimensions quoted by Mr. Pullan as 10-1/2 inches and 9 respectively. ”

“ As will be explained in the sequel, we find that, by the application of the formula of simple ratios, we are enabled to fix the dimensions of almost every part of the Mausoleum with almost absolute certainty; and at the same time it is found that the Mausoleum is one of the most complete and interesting examples of a building designed wholly on a scheme of simple definite ratios. Thus the very science which assists materially in solving the problem, is at the same time illustrated and confirmed by the discoveries it aids in making. ”

“ Among the Greek authors, the most amusing account is that given by Lucian in his ‘Dialogues of the Dead.’ He there makes Mausolus say, in reply to the scoffing inquiry of Diogenes (after recounting his exploits) , “Besides that personal superiority, I am beautiful, tall of stature, and of so robust a constitution as enabled me to sustain all the hardships and fatigues of war; but, to be brief, the principal point is, I have a prodigious monument raised over me at Halicarnassus, which for magnitude and beauty has not its equal in the whole world. ”

“ The authority for this is, of course, the Lion Tomb (Woodcut No. 1) ; but I think every architect will agree that a pyramid fading away behind a cymatium, without any marking line, would be most unpleasing architecturally; and especially when the pyramid slopes upwards at so low an angle, and is placed so high, the arrangement seems especially wanted. Assuming this, the 9-inch step is just what is required to bring the taller step perpendicular over the frieze, and preventing the cymatium at the same time appearing to have too great a projection at such points as it could be seen from. ”

“ Cavallo Group. the group is certainly very peculiar (Woodcut, No. 6) . It is true it is quite impossible that the angle line of the building could have been lost behind such a pedestal as this; and the two, if belonging to the Mausoleum, must have stood on separate pedestals; but this I think would have been an improvement; certainly so in that situation; but when placed where no architectural exigencies suggested their arrangement, nothing could be so easy as to bring them together as we now find them by simply sawing through their pedestals on the dotted line. ”

“ With regard to the vertical heights, there is absolutely no difficulty in making them agree with those found in Pliny. The pyramid,—“in metæ cacumen se contrahens,”—was 25 Greek cubits, or 37 ft. 6 in. The order was the same in height exactly, and if we choose to assume that the expression “pyramis altitudine inferiorem æquavit” referred to the pteron as the “lower part,” it comes out correctly. If we add to the pyramid the quadriga, estimating that at 13′ 9′′, we have 51′ 3′′, and taking the same quantity for the basement, we have
or exactly the dimensions found in Pliny. ”

“ Among the things written with regard to the Mausoleum, by far the most important is the celebrated passage in Pliny’s Natural History.2 It is to the following effect: “Scopas had, as rivals in the same age, Bryaxis, and Timotheus, and Leochares, who should be mentioned together, as they were equally employed in the sculptures of the Mausoleum, a sepulchre erected by his wife Artemisia to Mausolus, King of Caria, who died in the second year of the hundred and seventh Olympiad. ”

“ Now, if we assume thrice 21 cubits for the height, we have 63 cubits, and this with 8 cubits for the quadriga, and 9 for the entablature of the basement, making together 17 cubits, complete the 80 we are looking for. In other words, we return to the identical ratios from which we started, of 17′′ and 21′′, if these figures represented in inches the dimensions of the steps, as they are always assumed to be by Messrs. Newton, and Pullan, and Smith. If it were so, nothing could be more satisfactory; but, to make the ratio perfect, the last dimension, instead of 9 cubits, ought to be 8·8 ”

“ The real difficulty is, that a Lion’s head exists on a stone 1 cubit from the angle; and, unless the architects adopted a different arrangement at the angles from what they did in the centre, which is, to say the least of it, extremely improbable, it cannot be made to fit with the arrangement. If one plain piece had been found, it would have fixed the distance between centre and centre of column at 10 ft. ”

“ At page 24 we found the extreme length of the building to be 126 feet, or 72 Babylonian cubits. This ought to be the height; and so it is, to an inch, if we allow the quadriga to have measured 14 Greek feet. Mr. Newton, it is true, makes it only 13 ft. 3 in. English, but it was necessary for his theory of restoration to keep it as low as possible; and, though it may have been only that height, there are no data to prevent its being higher, nor indeed to fix its dimensions within the margin of a foot. ”

“ It is, however, one of the peculiarities and one of the principal beauties of the design of the Mausoleum, that it would have looked very much larger and probably even higher than the “Arc,” had it occupied its situation; and it is quite certain that a chariot group 14 feet high would look larger and more dignified on a pedestal raised on a pyramid, as at Halicarnassus, than would one twice that height on the great flat roof of the “Arc.” In the one case the group compares with a base of 20 feet by 16, in the other with a great flat measuring 150 feet by 75. ”

“ The only other author who furnishes us with any dimensions is Hyginus, a grammarian in the time of Augustus. In enumerating the seven wonders of the world, he describes the “Monument of King Mausolus, built of shining (?) (lychnicis) stones, 80 feet in height, and 1340 feet in circumference.” Neither of these dimensions agrees with Pliny’s; but the latter evidently refers to the peribolus, the wall of which was found in the recent excavations.4 The former, for reasons to be given hereafter, I fancy should be 80 cubits, meaning thereby Halicarnassian or Babylonian cubits of 21 inches each. ”

“ Pullan makes the whole height of the twenty-four steps equal to 25 feet English. If this were added it would be 26, or about 25 feet 9 inches Greek; leaving thus 11 feet 9 inches for the height of the meta or pedestal of the quadriga.
In so far as any accordance with Pliny’s dimensions is concerned, the height of the pyramid steps is not of the smallest consequence. Whatever is added to the pyramid must be taken from the meta; whatever is taken from the meta, which there is nothing to govern, must be added to the pyramid. ”

“ Newton bore as a Greek scholar, and a thoroughly educated archæologist, all the Hellenist public rejoiced that an expedition fitted out on so liberal a scale, and for so desirable an object, had fallen into what all then believed to be such competent hands. ”

“ In all that concerns sculpture, however, I bow to Mr. Newton’s authority, and accept the facts as he states them. Their being standing seems to necessitate pedestals for the statues of the peristele, which otherwise it might have been better to have dispensed with. Taking them 41either as sitting, standing, or couchant, they give life to and relieve the basement to a very great extent. ”

“ Returning to the Pteron: if the columns were ranged in a single row—and no other arrangement seems possible with the evidence now before us—there must have been eleven columns on the longer faces and nine at the ends, counting the angle columns twice, and consequently a column in the centre of each face. This, at least, is the resultant of every conceivable hypothesis that I have been able to try. No other will, even in a remote degree, suit the admitted forms and dimensions of the pyramid: it is that adopted by Lieutenant Smith and Mr. Pullan ”

“ It will be observed that each of the flights of stairs was perfectly lighted, the lower and upper being open above, and the intermediate flight open from the side. Their existence here will also explain why the intercolumniation was deeper by one-half in front of the cella than in the flanks. But for this difference, the stairs, instead of being 5 ft. 6 in. in width, could barely have been 2 feet wide.
The only other apartment for which it is necessary to find a place in the building is the tomb itself. ”

“ The consequence is that not one person in a hundred understands to what scale the drawings are made, and not one in a thousand will take the trouble to construct the scales which are indispensably necessary to enable him to study the plates.
14 As a proper punishment for the introduction of so troublesome a novelty as these decimal scales, either the draftsman or lithographer has separated by a dot all the first figures of the decimals in the plate of the restored order (Plate xxii.) . A dimension, therefore, which reads 2·96 or two feet eleven inches and a fraction in plate xxi., reads 2 ft. ”

“ Curiously enough, the Tomb at Mylassa (Woodcut No. 3) has a doorway placed unsymmetrically, for no reason that can be guessed, unless it were in imitation of its celebrated prototype. What also is curious is that at Mylassa a pillar stands directly over the centre of the doorway leading into the principal chamber of the tomb, exactly as occurs at Halicarnassus, and that chamber has a flat stone-roof, as here suggested, for the Mausoleum. ”

“ The lower diameter, which scales three feet six inches and one-third, reads three feet five inches and one-third, and so on. In fact, nine-tenths of the dimensions are absolutely wrong. The remaining tenth are right by accident; but most of these are so, simply because the lithographer has been too lazy or too inaccurate to put any sign by which they can be read. All this not only increases tenfold the labour of consulting the plates, but renders it doubtful whether frequently it is not a mere fighting with shadows to contest any theory on such documents. ”

“ This dimension may therefore be stated as between 15 and 16 Greek feet. The width of the plinth would be less than either, for a horse stands considerably within his extreme breadth, and I need hardly say that anywhere, but more especially at such a height as this, a sculptor would bring the hoof as near the edge of the plinth as possible. In the Museum, there is one hoof of one of the chariot-horses placed within 2 inches of the edge of the stone on which it stands; but this does not seem to have been an outside stone; though the same dimensions would be ample if it were. ”

“ All this does not, it is true, prove that the Babylonian cubit was used in Caria; but it makes it so probable that it may have been that there will be nothing shocking in calling the length of the longer step by this name; and as this measure was the modulus of the whole building, and occurs over and over again, it will be convenient, and avoid circumlocution, if—of course, 22without prejudging the fact—we call the measure of 21 Greek inches as equal to 1 Babylonian or Halicarnassean cubit. ”

“ The first attempt to explain the peculiarities of buildings by a scheme of definite ratios seems to be that expounded by Cæsar Cæsarini, in his edition of Vitruvius, published in 1521. In this work he shows by diagrams how a series of equilateral triangles explains all the dimensions and peculiarities of design in Milan Cathedral; and in this he probably was right, for, being a foreign work, it is very probable that the Italian architects, not understanding the true principles of the art, squeezed the design into this formal shape and so spoiled it. ”

“ Nor must we forget that all the principal features of the architecture were certainly accentuated by colour, and even if it is contended that the figures themselves were not painted, no one now hardly will deny that they were relieved by a painted background ”

“ The solution, however, does not seem difficult when once it is explained. It probably is this: the steps of the Pyramid being in the ratio of 264 to 5, or as 16·8 in. to 21 inches Greek, the cymatium gutter must be in the same ratio, or the angle would not be in the same line with the angles of the steps or of the pedestals, or whatever was used to finish the roof. In Mr. Newton’s text this dimension is called 1 ft. 10 in. throughout; according to Mr. Day’s lithographer it is 1′·88, which does not represent 1 ft. ”