Chapter XIV: The Mausoleum

We turn next to the Mausoleum, the great tomb erected in honour of Mausolus, king of Caria, by his widow Artemisia, in the middle of the fourth century. It ranked among the wonders of the world, and was the work of the most celebrated artists of Greece. The discovery of its remains by Sir Charles Newton occupies a prominent position among the first-rate achievements of English excavators. And their acquisition by the British Museum has made the National Gallery of Sculpture almost as rich in fourth-century sculpture as the purchase of the Elgin marbles had made it in the sculpture of the fifth century.

The problem of the reconstruction of the Mausoleum is among the most interesting of those connected with the history of Greek architecture. Generally speaking, after the excavation of the site of the great Greek building, its restoration is by no means difficult. The laws of Greek architecture are so precise, and its forms so simple, that it is possible from the evidence of a few stones to reconstruct it with the certainty with which the skilled palaeontologist constructs a geological animal from the evidence of a few bones. The wonderful reconstructions of Dr. Dörpfeld on the Athenian Acropolis, at Olympia, and elsewhere, have commonly but little in them which is arbitrary, though much which is brilliant.

Dr. Dörpfeld has not yet attempted the Mausoleum. But it is safe to say that in its reconstruction he would meet difficulties such as he has not yet encountered. At first sight, the materials for a reconstruction seem very abundant. We have an elaborate description of the monument by Pliny. We have an account of its partial destruction in the sixteenth century by the Knights of St. John. And the excavations on the site conducted by Sir Charles Newton were complete and systematic. But the advantage derived from all this richness of material is more than balanced by the fact that the Mausoleum was a work of new and original design. It was no Greek temple, made according to well-established rules, but a monument intended to stand alone through the centuries. Thus the man who would successfully restore its design must venture to rise above convention, and has need of a thorough grasp of the tendencies and possibilities of Greek architecture.

Setting aside the fanciful reconstructions proposed by scholars before Newton’s excavations, we pass to those made with the data now available. The earliest reconstruction, one to which we must attach considerable value, is that set forth by the excavators themselves. It is hard to say who is responsible for it. It was first projected by Lieut. Smith, an engineer attached to the expedition, revised and completed by Mr. Pullan the architect, adopted and defended by Sir Charles Newton himself. Plans based upon this, but differing from it in various points, were set forth by Mr. Fergusson and Dr. Petersen. But since neither of these writers has fairly grappled with the subject from the beginning, we may feel justified in not paying much heed to their plans. If we are to set aside a restoration made on the spot, with all local knowledge and every resource, it must be only after a very careful and complete survey of all the available evidence.

The plans of Pullan, Fergusson, and Petersen have won their way into our books, and are frequently treated as final. But final they certainly are not. They have never, until quite lately, been collated with sufficient care with the evidence, especially with the ancient authorities. They contain violations of precedent and probability which it is not easy to justify. Mr. Oldfield has therefore done an excellent work in his recent attempt[300] to improve upon the received restorations, an attempt marked by extreme care, lucidity, and ingenuity.

It is, unfortunately, not possible here to criticize in satisfactory detail the views of Mr. Oldfield and his predecessors. I propose only to set forth briefly the sum of the evidence

which exists for the reconstruction, after engraving side by side the plans set forth by Mr. Pullan (Fig. 78) and Mr. Oldfield (Fig. 79)[301] on the basis of that evidence. Readers to whom such inquiries have no interest would do well to omit the rest of this chapter.

Our materials are of four kinds. First we have the statements of certain ancient writers. Second, we have the curious account by Guichard of the state of the building when it was partially destroyed by the Knights of St. John in 1522. Third, we may cite the analogy of other ancient buildings of the same kind, so far as they are preserved. And of course all these sources of information must be used in strict subordination to the evidence of excavation and of the remains actually existing.

1. _Ancient Writers._

Hyginus[302] mentions three facts in regard to the Mausoleum; he says that it was of Parian marble, 80 feet in height, 1,350 feet in circumference. In two of these statements he is certainly right. The marble of the Mausoleum is Parian, and the circuit of the sacred enclosure or peribolus is given by Newton as 1,348 English feet. But as to the height of the building Hyginus contradicts Pliny, and must probably be corrected by him.

Martial, in a curious line, speaks of the Mausoleum as suspended in the air[303]. This phrase certainly implies that it did not appear to spectators a solid and massive structure, but light and aspiring. Mr. Oldfield contends that the phrase would well describe a building whereof the upper part rested mainly on pillars[304], and would certainly not apply to a building of which solidity is the most striking feature, as it is of Mr. Pullan’s reconstruction.

The most important of ancient writers on the Mausoleum is Pliny[305], whose description we must transcribe at length, both in Latin and English.

Scopas habuit aemulos eadem aetate Bryaxim et Timotheum et
Leocharen, de quibus simul dicendum est quoniam pariter caelauere
Mausoleum. Sepulcrum hoc est ab uxore Artemisia factum Mausolo
Cariae regulo, qui obiit Olympiadis cvii[306] anno secundo. Opus id
ut esset inter septem miracula hi maxime fecere artifices. Patet ab
austro et septentrione sexagenos[307] ternos pedes, breuius a
frontibus, toto circumitu pedes ccccxi[308], attolitur in
altitudinem xxv cubitis, cingitur columnis xxxvi. Πτερόν
uocauere[309]. Ab oriente caelauit Scopas, a septentrione Bryaxis,
a meridie Timotheus, ab occasu Leochares, priusque quam peragerent
regina obiit. Non tamen recesserunt nisi absoluto iam, id gloriae
ipsorum artisque monumentum iudicantes, hodieque certant manus.
Accessit et quintus artifex. Namque supra πτερόν pyramis altitudine
inferiorem aequauit[310], uiginti quatuor gradibus in metae cacumen
se contrahens. In summo est quadriga marmorea quam fecit Pythis.
Haec adiecta cxxxx pedum altitudine totum opus includit.

Scopas had as rivals and contemporaries Bryaxis, Timotheus, and
Leochares, whom we must treat of together since together they
sculptured the Mausoleum. This is the tomb erected to Mausolus
prince of Caria by his widow Artemisia. He died in the second year
of the 107th Olympiad (B.C. 351). That this work is among the seven
wonders of the world is mainly owing to these artists. Its length
on the north and south sides is sixty-three feet; the façades are
shorter; the whole circuit is 411 feet; it rises to a height of
twenty-five cubits, and is surrounded by thirty-six columns. This
they call the _Pteron_. The sculptures of the east side are by
Scopas, those on the north by Bryaxis, those on the south by
Timotheus, those on the west by Leochares. Before the task was
finished the queen died; but the artists ceased not till the work
was done, considering that it would redound to their glory and be a
memorial of their art. To this day they vie in handiwork. There
came in also a fifth artist. For over the _pteron_ was a pyramid in
height equal to that below, with a flight of twenty-four steps
tapering to a point. On the top is a marble quadriga made by
Pythis. The addition of this raises the height of the whole
building to 140 feet.

In this passage are several disputed readings, which I have marked in the notes. I have accepted Mr. Oldfield’s version, which is that of the earlier edition of Sillig’s Pliny. I will briefly sum up Pliny’s evidence as to the form and dimensions of the building. His statement as to the circumstances of its erection needs no summing; it is clear, and no doubt correct.

1. The frontage towards north and south was 63 feet: the frontage (in a stricter sense the fronts) towards east and west was shorter. But the circuit was 411 feet. This latter dimension seems inconsistent with the former. How could a building which was 411 feet in circuit have no side longer than 63 feet? Impressed by this difficulty, some writers supposed the true dimensions to be 163 feet (adding to the text centenos) for the frontage to north and south. Colonel Leake, followed by Newton and Pullan, regarded the dimension of 63 feet as really the length of the cella, not of any frontage. This, however, is doing clear violence to the text of Pliny. But by a most ingenious adaptation, Mr. Oldfield has succeeded in reconciling the numbers of Pliny as they stand. He has, in fact, substituted for a square or oblong groundplan of the building ☐, a cruciform plan [** symbol]; and so makes it possible for any given front to be less than a fourth of the circuit of the building. Here Mr. Oldfield has certainly won a great advantage over rival constructions: he has kept to the text of Pliny, and at the same time greatly improved the form of the building. It is true that it would not be easy to find other Greek buildings of cruciform plan, but the Erechtheium at Athens gives us a hint that such a plan, produced by the intersection of two ordinary temples, would not be impossible. And the Mausoleum was a building in which originality of design was to be expected.

2. The number of columns of the pteron was thirty-six. The pteron is the temple-like building erected on the base, a construction of which, in any possible view, columns were the principal feature. Now the writers who supposed the pteron to be a huge square edifice were compelled to place the columns all round the edge of it: and to fill up the midst with a vast and solid construction of hewn stone (Fig. 78). But Mr. Oldfield is enabled, by greatly reducing the superficial area covered by the pteron, to make the columns by far its most conspicuous feature. Within them there is room only for a small building; or the space may even be filled by a few solid piers, which is the plan he adopts. He can thus far more nearly conform to the ‘aere pendentia Mausolea’ of Martial.

3. The total height was 140 feet[311] from the ground to the top of the chariot. Let us consider how this height was made up. Thirty-seven and a half feet (25 cubits) was occupied by the pteron. Then there was a pyramid of twenty-four steps over the pteron, supporting a chariot, and there was under the pteron another pyramid equal in height to the upper one. Now we have considerable remains of the steps of the upper pyramid, from careful measurement of which Mr. Pullan has ascertained that each step was 12¼ inches in height. Thus the total height of the upper pyramid was 24½ feet. The lower pyramid was of the same height. The chariot would not occupy less than twelve feet. We have thus accounted for 37½, 24½, 24½ and 12 feet, about 100 feet of the 140 of Pliny. The amount may be filled up by assuming that the whole stood on a high podium or basis, and by inserting an attic over the pteron, or in other ways.

4. If the reading _aequavit_ for _aequat_ be accepted, an opening is left for Mr. Oldfield’s view, that after the building had been set up with a pyramid rising to a point, it was decided to add a chariot on the top, and that in order to accomplish this, a basis was built round the topmost steps of the pyramid, of which six were thus concealed from view.

5. Sir C. Newton[312] and Mr. Pullan accepted the reading ‘_altitudinem_ inferiorem’ for _altitudine_, and had supposed the assertion to be that the height of the pyramid above was equal to that of the basis below the pyramid. This is, however, a mere correction of the text. If we adhere to the reading of the MSS. we must retain _altitudine_, and suppose _inferiorem_ to apply to a second pyramid beneath the pteron. It is thus that Mr. Oldfield takes the phrase, and of the existence of this second pyramid he finds proof in the testimony of Guichard, to which we shall next turn. The height of this lower pyramid he supposes to have been equal to that of the original pyramid of twenty-four steps, not of course to the later truncated pyramid of eighteen steps.

It will be seen on referring to Figs. 78 and 79 that the acceptance of one or the other of these readings of Pliny makes a great difference in the principles of reconstruction. Mr. Pullan admitted no lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot on the summit as part of the original design, makes the twenty-four steps of the upper pyramid support it. Mr. Oldfield does admit a lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot as a later addition works into its basis six steps of the upper pyramid. Hence a great difference between the two restorers in the area covered by the base of the upper pyramid, which is far larger in Mr. Pullan’s design: and this affects the whole form of the building, since the excavations determined the size of the area on which the whole stood. It is not easy to meet Mr. Oldfield’s argument in favour of his design, that the phrase ‘tapering to a point’ applies far better to his pyramid, as originally intended, than to Mr. Pullan’s flat-topped pyramid.

2. _The Testimony of Guichard._

Such appears to be the testimony of Pliny. And in some points it is curiously supplemented by the very notable account, professing to come from an eye-witness, which is given us by Guichard[313] of the proceedings of the Knights of St. John on the site of the Mausoleum. ‘In the year 1522, when Sultan Solyman was preparing an expedition against the Rhodians, the Grand Master, knowing the importance of the Castle of St. Peter [at Budrum or Halicarnassus], and being aware that the Turk would seize it if he could at the first assault, sent some knights thither to repair the fortress and make all due preparations to resist the enemy. Among the number of those sent was the Commander de la Tourette, a Lyonnese knight, who was afterwards present at the taking of Rhodes, and came to France, where he related what I am now about to narrate to M. d’Alechamps, a person sufficiently known by his learned writings, and whose name I mention here only for the purpose of publishing my authority for so singular a story.

‘When these knights had arrived at Mesy (Budrum), they at once set about fortifying the castle; and looking about for stones wherewith to make lime, found none more suitable or more easily got at than certain steps of white marble, raised in the form of a staircase (_perron_) in the middle of a level field near the port, which had formerly been the great square of Halicarnassus. They therefore pulled down and took away these marble steps for their use, and finding the stone good, proceeded, after having destroyed the little masonry remaining above ground, to dig lower down, in the hope of finding more.

‘In this attempt they had great success, for in a short time they perceived that the deeper they went the more the structure was enlarged at the base, supplying them not only with stone for making lime but also for building.

‘After four or five days, having laid bare a great space one afternoon, they saw an opening as into a cellar. Taking a candle, they descended through this opening, and found that it led into a fine large square apartment, ornamented all round with columns of marble, with their bases, capitals, architrave, frieze, and cornices, carved and sculptured in _mezzo rilievo_. The space between the columns was lined with slabs and bands of marbles of different colours, ornamented with mouldings and sculptures, in harmony with the rest of the work, and inserted in the white ground of the wall, where deeds and battle-scenes were represented sculptured in relief.

‘Having at first admired these works, and entertained their fancy with the singularity of the sculpture, they pulled it to pieces, and broke up the whole of it, applying it to the same purpose as the rest.

‘Besides this apartment, they found afterwards a very low door, which led into another apartment, like an ante-chamber, where was a tomb, with its urn and its cover (_tymbre_) of white marble, very beautiful and of marvellous lustre. This sepulchre, for want of time, they did not open, the retreat having already sounded.

‘The day after, when they returned, they found the tomb opened, and the earth all round strewn with fragments of cloth of gold, and ornaments of the same metal, which made them suppose that the pirates who hovered on their coast, having some inkling of what had been discovered, had visited the place during the night, and had removed the lid of the tomb.’

Those who are acquainted with the Levant, with its wondrous tales of underground chambers and hidden treasures, will scarcely be disposed to accept, without a grain of salt, the details of this curious story. It may be true, or it may be in the main a work of the imagination. Many such stories, grounded or groundless, are flitting from mouth to mouth in Asia Minor, and rapidly growing in the process. Nevertheless it is probable that Mr. Oldfield is justified in saying that the earlier part of the tale affords a clear confirmation of the existence (which has been denied) of a lower pyramid at the Mausoleum as well as that which surmounted the building. The knights found in the ground steps of white marble like a staircase, and as they dug downwards these steps spread outwards, just as would the steps of a pyramid. The solid mass of marble had escaped while most of the upper part of the building had been carried away as material for the castles of the knights. But it survived no longer; it was carried away by the companions of De la Tourette and built into the walls of the castle. As to what Guichard tells us in regard to the contents of the inner chamber, scepticism is more justifiable.

3. _The Analogy of other Buildings._

Of monuments mentioned in these pages, only two can fairly be used for comparison with the Mausoleum. These are the Lycian Nereid Monument (Fig. 74) and the Lion Tomb of Cnidus (Fig. 77). The Nereid Monument consists, like the Mausoleum, of a pteron raised upon a base or podium; but no part of it is of pyramidal form. It is merely, if the restoration be correct, a building in the form of an ordinary Greek temple, on an unusually high podium. It may be used as proof that the Mausoleum also had a high podium, for the existence of which the existing remains furnish no direct evidence. The Lion Tomb may be suggestive from a constructional point of view, as the architectural problem involved in supporting a massive lion on the top was not unlike the problem which the architect of the Mausoleum had to solve. But its elevation was of a far simpler type than was that of the Mausoleum.

Other buildings are cited and engraved in the treatise of Mr. Oldfield, but unless we could examine them in detail it would be useless to mention them here. They are valuable rather as offering suggestions on points of construction than as affording us real parallels to the plan of the Mausoleum.

* * * * *

The evidence of existing remains must be studied partly in Sir C. Newton’s _History of Discoveries_, partly in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum. Lately Mr. Murray has in that museum set up one of the pillars of the pteron, with base and cornice, a reconstruction which will greatly help those who wish to revive in imagination the glories of the most splendid of ancient sepulchres.

For the manner in which out of the data Mr. Oldfield makes a conjectural restoration of the great tomb we must refer the reader to his admirable paper in _Archaeologia_. We can only conclude, as we began, by referring to his engraving set side by side with Mr. Pullan’s (Figs. 78, 79). Of the two it is by far the better, closer to the ancient evidence, less clumsy, more Greek. But of course it may be in turn superseded by other restorations hereafter. In one point both reconstructions are certainly wrong, in placing on the top of the whole, in the chariot of Pythis, the magnificent statues of Mausolus and Artemisia, found on the site, which were doubtless carefully preserved in the interior of the building, and not put almost beyond sight and exposed to the weather on the top of it. I have elsewhere[314] maintained this view by the following arguments:--

1. Pliny mentions the chariot of Pythis, but says nothing of any figures in it.

2. The statues at such a height, in a chariot, and behind gigantic horses, would have been almost invisible from below.

3. Neither Mausolus nor his wife is holding reins or clad in the dress of a charioteer.

4. The head of Mausolus in particular is too well preserved to have been long exposed to the weather.

5. Both the horses and the wheel of the chariot are on a far larger scale than the two statues.

6. They are also very inferior to the statues as works of art.

The only argument of importance on the other side arises from the fact that the statues and the fragments of the chariot were found together. But it must be observed that the course of discovery in the German excavations at Olympia proved that collocations of remains of ancient buildings have often a most fortuitous character. And not only were the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia found with the remains of the chariot, but also a variety of fragments of other statues which can have had nothing to do with that chariot.

We cannot yet venture to say to which of the Mausoleum artists the portrait of Mausolus is due. Quite lately Dr. J. Six has suggested Bryaxis and Dr. W. Amelung Praxiteles, who is said by Vitruvius to have had a share in the monument. But neither of these conjectures reaches beyond a probability.

We possess, besides the sculptured remains already mentioned, quite a wealth of fragments of statues and reliefs from the site. (1) Some fragments of metopes, one of which seems to have represented an adventure of Theseus. (2) A few figures from a most spirited frieze, representing a race of chariots. This frieze is generally accepted as the work of Scopas. (3) Scanty vestiges of a frieze representing the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs. (4) The well-known wonderful frieze of the Greeks and Amazons. (5) A magnificent torso of a Persian rider on his horse. (6) Portions of many statues of colossal size and of life size. These sculptural remains have never been properly published[315], nor are by any means all of them exhibited in the public rooms of the British Museum.

The Mausoleum was a wonder of the world, not so much on account of its size and costliness as because of its ingenious architecture and noble sculpture. Though it had not the magnificence of the Taj Mahal of Agra, nor the solidity of the Pyramids of Egypt, it is probably the noblest tomb ever erected for mortal man. It not only immortalized the name of Mausolus, but it is also a leading authority for the style of the second great school of Attic sculptors. Its poor remains are among the most precious possessions of the British Museum. Of the authors, we can still say, in the words of Pliny, ‘hodie certant manus.’