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The Stoa by the Harbour at Perachora: (Plates 18–27; Colour Plates A (Frontispiece) and B (before Plate 18))

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

J. J. Coulton
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Extract

The position and general form of the Stoa by the Harbour at Perachora have long been known. It was discovered and excavated in 1932, the third and fullest year of Payne's excavations at Perachora. Brief notices of its discovery are to be found in the preliminary reports for that year, in BSA xxxii (1931–2) 260–1, and JHS lii (1932) 242, and in AJA xxxvii (1933) 155, AA xlvii (1932) 563, RÉG xlix (1936) 151, and in ILN 8/7/33; of these the last is perhaps the fullest. In Perachora i a single paragraph is devoted to the stoa on pp. 14–15, but rather more information can be gathered from the plan of the Hera Akraia temple, the triglyph altar, and the stoa on plate 138. This shows the position, plan, and state of preservation of the building when it was excavated. Since the publication of Perachora i in 1940 no further work has been done on the stoa, but there is a brief treatment of it in R. Martin, Recherches sur l'agora grecque, 461, 465 n. 4, 486, and in tables iv and v, and a discussion and drawing of the Ionic semi-column capital in G. Roux, L' Architecture dans l'Argolide aux IVe et IIIe siècles avant J.-C., 346 and plate 91.1.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 59 , November 1964 , pp. 100 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1964

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References

1 I should like to thank the many people who have helped and advised me in my work on this building; the Managing Committee of the British School for entrusting me with the publication, and supplying the funds and backing for the necessary supplementary excavations; the Director of the School, A. H. S. Megaw, who organized and supervised these excavations, where his experience was of the greatest value; the authorities of the Greek Archaeological Service for granting permission for them to be carried out; N. Verdelis, the Ephor of Antiquities for the Argolid and Corinthia, for his interest and advice; Dr. Chr. Karouzos for permission to study the fragments of the stoa now in the National Museum at Athens; the Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Prof. H. S. Robinson, and Miss Perlzweig, for their ready help and advice while I was studying comparative material at Athens and Corinth; and Dr. W. H. Plommer, of Cambridge University, whose suggestions and criticisms both in general and in detail have removed many errors and obscurities from my work, and whose knowledge of Greek Architecture has been freely placed at my disposal.

2 Measured from the west end of the north wing stylobate to the west edge of the east wing stylobate.

3 From the inner face of the back wall to the outer edge of the stylobate.

4 The levels are taken from Perachora i, pl. 138, but note that the figure there for the re-entrant angle of the stylobate should read 3·81 not 3·91.

5 There is no indication whether this was for a simple wooden dowel or an empolion.

6 Since the excavations of 1933 three wall blocks have been laid in the second course of the north rear wall. At least one belongs to the east rear wall.

7 Cf. the Stoa of Attalos I, at Delphi, (BCH lxxvi (1952) 167)Google Scholar; the North Stoa at Assos (Bacon, Clark, and Koldewey, Investigations at Assos 43); the West Stoa on the Theatre terrace at Pergamon, (Pergamon iv. 27. pl. xvii)Google Scholar; at the Aigai Market Building (Bohn, Altertumer von Aegae 16). Tiles from the Stoa were found low down in fill behind the east rear wall; this shows that the space between the east rear wall and the rock was left empty until the destruction of the Stoa.

8 If there was a bench; see note 10.

9 The single block along the west end wall is 155·5 cm. long.

10 If the bench were omitted along the south end, the stylobate length of the east wing would be 12·025–0·465 = 11·56 m., that is 11·0 cm. less than that of the north wing; each intercolumniation would then be 11·0/5cm = 2·2 cm. less than on the north wing. However, there is no apparent reason why the bench should be omitted, and I prefer to suppose another irregularity in the plan. An increase of 7·1 cm. per intercolumniation would not be too obtrusive and even this could be reduced by restoring at the south end a bench 45 cm. wide (as normal) and a wall c. 50 cm. thick instead of 58·5 cm. (the north rear wall is after all as thin as 46 cm.). The stylobate length would thus be 11·925 m. making each intercolumniation only 5·1 cm. more than those of the north wing.

11 Cf. Epldauros, , Gymnasion, (PAE 1901, pl. i)Google Scholar; Brauron, Stoa at the Artemision, (Ergon, 1962, figs. 36, 49, 50)Google Scholar; Olympia, Leonidaion (Olympia, Plates: Architecture i, pl. lxii).

12 Martin 464, n. 4, table iv.

13 The corner column has a diameter of 78 cm. instead of 69 cm. (Pergamon ii. 33, pl. xvi). Such an increase is quite impossible at Perachora.

14 Cf. the Leonidaion, , Olympia, (Olympia, Text ii. 87)Google Scholar, Stoa at the Artemision, Brauron, (PAE 1950, 181).Google Scholar

15 Dimension given in the notebook.

16 Taken from the restored drawing.

17 Cf. the Temple of Zeus, Nemea, (BCH xlix (1925) 11)Google Scholar; the Tholos at Epldauros (Roux 140).

18 Corinth 1. 2. 97–98, pl. xii.

19 Corinth xiv. 32, figs. 7, 9.

20 PAE 1949, 92, fig. 2.

21 Pergamon ii, pl. xxiii.

22 BCH lxxvi (1952) 176, figs. 19, 20.

23 Olympla, Plates: Architecture i, pl. xlix.

24 Olympla, Text ii. 81, Plates: Architecture i, pl. lx.

25 Corinth I. iv. 33–34, fig. 13.

26 The Stoa Basileios, Athens, where two half-metopes met at the re-entrant angle (Hesperia vi (1937) fig. 22).

27 Cf. the Temple of Athena Lindia and the Propylaia at Lindos (Dyggve, , Lindos III. i, pls. iv. LGoogle Scholar; v, L), and the Propylaia to the shrine of Demeter near Selinus (koldewey and Puchstein, Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien 83, fig. 59). The triglyph is kept centred over the anta and the frieze unit changed on the sides of of the Temple of Askleplos and the Dodekatheon, , Delos, (Exploration archéologique de Délos xx, fig. 53, p. 84; xii. 40–42, pl. E.).Google Scholar

28 In the Abaton extension, Epldauros, a compressed Doric order of engaged pllasters forms a basement for the Ionic stoa above. Even if this is earlier than our stoa (the buildings are roughly contemporary) it is not a proper two-storied stoa.

29 Rhomaios, O Makedonikos Taphos tis Verginas 20–21, figs, II, 13. Cf. the Ionic base from the Temple of ‘Ceres’, Paestum (Krauss, , Die Tempel von Paestum 1. i. 43–44, pl. 33).Google Scholar

30 Previously published by Roux pl. 91. I.

31 Seen from the front.

32 If the barrier were of wood, the burnt traces would be strongest where the barrier touched the piers.

33 This possibility was suggested to me by Mr. A. H. S. Megaw.

34 Some of the antefixes were trimmed at the base when they were set.

35 Corinth I. iv. 83.

36 I take the term from L. Shoe, Greek Mouldings 106; it means a hawk's-beak where the projecting moulding is not an ovolo but a cyma reversa, e.g. Shoe pl. lv. 9–43.

37 This decoration is also on the similar crowning hawk's-beak of the cornice of the Leonidaion, Olympla, where the polychromy is similar though not identical (Olympla, Text ii. 88, Plates: Architecture i, pl. lxiv. 1; ii, pl. cxiii).

38 Found in the east-side filling of the west-end foundation trench. Attic clay, slightly misfired; from a skyphos of c 6 cm. base diameter. The body has not yet adopted the ogee profile of the full fourth century b.c., but the foot is low and square-shouldered like that of an ogee skyphos. Cf. Olynthus xiii no. 564 (pl. 199, p. 304), dated to the late fifth to early fourth century; no. 567 (pl. 198, p. 305), dated to the first half of the fourth century. Unpublished material in Athens and Corinth seems to confirm that such skyphoi were made in the late fifth and early fourth centuries B.c.

39 Because most mainland stoas belong to the fifth and fourth centuries b.c., and most East Greek ones to the third and second centuries B.c., it is difficult to distinguish groups in time from groups in place. The following group, however, seems to be clearly local.

40 A similar group to that listed above for a light entablature also has the heavy echinus and annulets.

41 This similarity might be the result of local prefer ences, but the North-West Stoa, Corinth, is not in general as closely similar as the South Stoa.

42 Gardner, et al., Excavations at Megalopolis 1890–1891 pl. xii.Google Scholar

43 Cavvadias, Epidaure pl. v 6; Defrasse-Lechat, Epidaure pl. vi. For dating, Roux 184.

44 Études Thasiennes, vi, R. Martin, L'Agora i, Plan H, and for the date, ibid. 45–50.

45 Lindos III. i, pl. vi. E, ii–iv.

46 Shoe 74, 115, pl. lv. 25.

47 Shoe 113–14, pl. lv. 10–11.

48 Shoe 114, pl. lv. 12.

49 Shoe 111, pl. liv. 21.

50 Shoe 111, pl. liv. 23. For date, Roux 274.

51 Roux 342–8.

52 C. R. Cockerell, The Temple of Zeus Panhellenius at Aegina and Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, pl. xiv; Roux 37–40, pls. 13–15.

53 PAE 1905, figs. 23–27; Roux 346–8, pl. 92.

54 AM xxxiii (1908) pl. xiv.

55 This treatment is already foreshadowed at the temple of Athena Pronaia, Delphi (Roux pl. 94. I). Weickert lists these ‘calyx’ type capitals in RM lix (1944) 214–19, and attributes them to influence from Magna Graecia.

56 L. Heuzey and H. Daumet, Mission archéologique de Macédoine, pls. 10, 11, 12; M. Andronikos et al.,

57 I am grateful to Prof. H. S. Robinson, Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, for permission to publish the photograph in FIG. 13 and to study the unpublished architectural terracottas from Corinth.

58 Corinth xiv. 128–31, 137, 138.

59 Corinth 1. iv. 86–87, Pls. 20. 1, 21. 1a.

60 This arrangement also occurs fairly frequently in upper stories, e.g. East Stoa of the Asklepleion, at Athens, (AJA xv (1911) 39–40Google Scholar, figs. 1–2); stoa by the temple of Athena Polias, Pergamon, (Pergamon ii. pl. xxiii).Google Scholar

61 Corinth xiv. 32, figs. 7, 9.

62 PAE 1949, 92, fig. 2; 1950, 194; 1951, 206.

63 Corinth 1. ii. 97–100, 128–9.

64 BCH lxxvi (1952), 176, figs. 19, 20.

65 My scheme claims no originality; it is merely an attempt to synthesize previous datings into a consistent system.

66 Roux, passim, especially the tables at the end.

67 Shoe, passim.

68 Metropolitan Museum Studies iv (1933) 225.

69 AM xxxiii (1908) 270–1.

70 The Abaton capitals are obviously closely connected with those from the stoa at Oropos. Shoe dates the mouldings from the lower story of the extension to the second half of the fourth century B.c., and it seems likely that such exact coples as the Ionic capltals of the extension were made when the distinctive Peloponnesian tradition was still alive.

71 PAE 1905, 87.

72 Corinth 1. iv. 94–98.

73 Perachora i. 14.

74 Information kindly supplied by M. J. Price, based on a new study of Corinthian coins, would bring the date of the rebuilding of the Asklepleion down to c. 285–280.

75 Corinth xiv 128–31, 137, 138.

76 See above, 128. The mouldings do not seem to be decisive evidence for Stillwell's date (Shoe 67, 74, pls. xxix. 34, xxxi. 47).

77 Corinth 1. ii. 128–9.

78 Études Thasiennes, vi, Martin, R., L'Agora i. 45–50.Google Scholar

79 Perachora i. 84, pl. 130.

80 Compare the bases from Bassae, the Abaton at Epldauros, the Stoa iv at Calauria, &c. (Roux 336–8.)

81 Shown on a Pergamene coin of Septimius Severus, BCM Mysia, Pergamon no. 315. Discussed by Langlotz in Festschrift für Carl Weickert 35–40. Such canoples were also used over statues and thrones.

82 Perachora i. 25.

83 The ancient road up to the town from the sea-shore south of Lake Vouliagmene must have taken a good deal of the traffic from Corinth to the town of Perachora, but there is also an ancient ramp down to the sea to the west of the little harbour (Perachora i. 15); and if, as Payne suggests, the harbour was deeper in antiquity, there is no reason to suppose that it remained unused, for it would be the most convenient landing-place for the shrines of Hera Akraia and Hera Limenia, for the lighthouse rock, and for at least the western parts of the town. Though the harbour itself is quite small, a considerable stretch of sea outside it would normally provide a secure anchorage.

84 Perachora i. 15. There is no evidence that this area was ever used for commerce or administration, and it would be highly unusual for an agora to take the form of a small enclosed court. Both buildings have the same un usual plan, but this cannot be given any significance since there was not sufficient room for a straight stoa of any size on either site.

85 Payne, who thought that the stoa was built c. 400, says (Perachora i. 15, 25) that the stoa and ‘agora’ were con temporary, but gives no evidence for this. The ‘agora’ with its H-clamps cannot date to the end of the fourth century.

86 Xenophon, , Hellenica iv. 5Google Scholar, discussed in Perachora i. 16 ff.

87 Perachora i 15.

88 A Byzantine coin was found well up in the fill above the stoa floor. It was probably the coin of AJexios I (A.D. 1081–1115) mentioned in Perachora ii. 460, C. 33.