Ancient Greece and Hellenistic States

An enclosure attached to a temple of Asklepios, where patients not in a state of ritual purity could receive the deity while asleep.

Decorative finial crowning the apex and lower angles of the pediments of ancient Greek and Roman buildings. Acroteria were normally made of terracotta, poros, limestone or marble, although bronze acroteria are mentioned in the literary sources: Pausanias (Guide to Greece V.x.4) noted gilded Victories framed by bronze cauldrons at the lower angles of the pediments of the ...

Elaborate monument erected by Octavian (later Augustus) in 29–27 bc on the Preveza Peninsula in Western Greece, north of the present-day town of Preveza, overlooking Cape Actium, to commemorate his naval victory over Mark Antony at Actium in 31 bc. The nearby city of Nikopolis...

German architect, archaeologist and writer. He was one of the leading figures of Berlin’s architectural establishment in the latter half of the 19th century. On completion of his studies in 1852, he was given the prestigious post of Bauleiter at the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by Friedrich August Stüler. He subsequently became a lecturer and in ...

Most sacred inner part of a temple, accessible only to the priests (see Greece, ancient, fig. g).

Columnar niche or shrine applied decoratively to a larger building. The word is a diminutive from the Latin word aedes (‘temple’). Summerson traced its application to Gothic architecture and drew attention to the importance of playing at being in a house for all small children; he claimed that this kind of play has much to do with the aesthetics of architecture and leads ultimately to the use of the aedicula. The earliest surviving examples of aediculae are shop-signs from ...

Apex (or ‘ridge’) of a Classical temple.

Greek painter. He was the son of Eudemos and came originally from Samos, but worked in Athens; none of his work survives. He was said to be self-taught. Vitruvius (On Architecture VII.praef.11) claimed that Agatharchos was the first artist to paint a stage set on wooden panels. This was for a tragedy by ...

Place of public meeting or market place in an ancient Greek polis or city, the equivalent of a Roman forum (see Greece, ancient, §II, 1, (i), (b)).

Greek, 19th century, male.

Born 1852, in Athens; died 1878.

Painter. Waterscapes, seascapes.

A friend of the architect H.C. Hansen, Altamura visited Copenhagen where he attended the fine arts academy from 1873 to 1876. He was primarily a painter of seascapes.

Copenhagen, 3 June 1976...

Term applied to a temple with columns in porticos at both ends but not along the sides.

Greek architect and astronomer. He is associated with a single building, the Tower of the Winds (Horologion) on the edge of the Roman agora in Athens, of which he was named the architect by Vitruvius (On Architecture I.vi.4). This elegant and ingenious small marble octagonal building was designed externally as a monumental sundial and weather-vane, with a representation of each of the eight winds carved on the sides of the octagon; at the apex of the roof was a bronze Triton that acted as a weathercock. The interior of the building contained a complicated waterclock; apart from the Triton and the clock, the building is well preserved. Andronikos’ home town of Kyrrhos appears to be that in Macedonia, rather than the town of the same name in Syria, because a sundial from the island of Tenos carries an epigram in honour of its maker, who is named as Andronikos of Kyrrhos in Macedonia, son of Hermias, and compares him with the famous Hellenistic astronomer Aratos of Soli in Cilicia (...

Engaged column or pilaster terminating the side wall of a Classical building. When the columns of an end portico stand between projecting end walls terminating in antae, they are said to be in antis (see Greece, ancient, fig.a).

[antefixum; pl. antefixes, antefixa]. Plaque closing the outer end of the final cover tile in each row of overlapping cover tiles running down from the ridge to the eaves of a sloped roof on Classical Greek and Roman and on Neo-classical buildings. Its practical functions were to prevent rain from penetrating below the cover tile and seeping through the opening between the adjacent pan tiles beneath, and to prevent wind from dislodging the row of cover tiles. Although functional in origin, the antefix soon also became a decorative element adorned with relief and/or painted decoration. The size and shape of early examples was determined by that of the cover tile, but by ...

4th century, male.

Painter.

Ancient Greek.

Pliny Antenorides was, with Euphranor, a follower of Aristides - though not Aristides the famous painter of the time of Alexander but probably the grandfather of the latter and an architect, sculptor and painter. Nothing is known of the works of Antenorides....

Ancient Greek or Roman changing-room.

Term applied to a building with no columns along the sides, though it may have a portico at the front and/or back.

Single arch or series of arches carried on piers or columns. In antiquity arcades were used most prominently in the architecture of the Roman Empire, which took advantage of the greater load-bearing capacity of arches over the trabeated system that dominated Greek architecture (see...

5th century, male.

Active in Attica in the second half of the 5th century BC.

Stone worker, sculptor (?).

Ancient Greek.

Archedemus was involved with the transformation of one of the largest natural grottoes to the south of Mount Hymettus (near the modern village of Vari) into a sanctuary dedicated to Pan, the Nymphs and the Charites (the Graces). At the foot of the central wall of the grotto, Archedemus has depicted himself (?) in his working clothes, with his pointed hammer and set square....

Lowermost portion of an entablature, principally used in Classical architecture, comprising a horizontal beam that spans the columns or piers in the manner of a lintel (see Greece, ancient, fig.b and Orders, architectural, fig.vi). The term was subsequently applied to the moulding around a door or window....