Chapter XVIII
.), show throughout a strong influence of Ionic art; though all of local manufacture, their style is purely Greek, as is the case with many of the contemporary works in bronze found in Italy.[342]
[Illustration: FIG. 10. TERRACOTTA ANTEFIX FROM MARATHON (BRITISH MUSEUM).]
Antefixes from Hellenic sites are not so common, nor do they present the same variety of subject or richness of colour. In many cases, as in the fourth-century British Museum specimens from Asia Minor,[343] the decoration is confined to scrolls and floral patterns in low relief, the palmette being regarded as the most appropriate decorative motive for this form of tile. An example of this type in the British Museum (C 902 = Fig. 10.), found on the field of Marathon, is inscribed with the name Athenaios. Many later antefixes with remains of colouring have been found at Tarentum, the subjects being chiefly heads of women or mythological personages.
Roof-tiles proper have been discovered in large numbers both in Greece and Italy. Olympia has proved the richest site in this respect, and there are many specimens in the Museums of Athens and Palermo.[344] Many of them have coloured decoration, and these terracotta remains are almost the only evidence we now have of the extensive system of colouring applied by the Greeks to their temples.[345]
At Olympia all the buildings have terracotta roofs except the temple of Zeus and two others, the dates varying from the seventh century B.C. down to Roman times. We know from Pausanias[346] that the temple of Zeus was roofed with marble tiles in imitation of terracotta, an invention traditionally attributed to Byzes of Naxos. The covering-tiles of the Heraion roof (see Fig. 9.) end in semicircular discs painted with ornamental patterns; the flat roof-tiles are of the concave type described above. The normal sixth-century type of roof is seen in the Treasury of the Megarians, which has smooth flat tiles and covering-tiles ending in antefixes with palmette-and-lotos ornament, and a kymation cornice with lion’s head spouts.
A greater variety of tiles is to be seen in the Treasury of Gela. Here for the first time we note the introduction of a new system, which consists in nailing slabs of terracotta over the surface of the stonework, or, to use the convenient German term, “Bekleidungstechnik.”[347] It is obvious at the first glance that the origin of this practice dates from the time when buildings were largely or wholly of wood, which required protection from the weather. When the wood was replaced by stone, the fashion held its ground for a time; but with the more extensive use of marble, which could not well be covered in this manner, it disappeared altogether in Greece.
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PLATE III
[Illustration:
PART OF ARCHAIC TEMPLE WITH TERRACOTTA ROOF, CIVITA LAVINIA, AS RESTORED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. ]
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But the Treasury of Gela is by a Sicilian architect, and it seems highly probable that the method of decoration employed was not one usually practised in Greece, but was introduced from the Western Mediterranean. Though rare in Greece, it is exceedingly common in Sicily and Southern Italy. The middle temple (known as C) on the acropolis of Selinus, and buildings at Gela and Syracuse, may be cited as examples. The principle is also well illustrated in the terracotta remains of the temple at Civita Lavinia, excavated by Lord Savile in 1890–94, which are now in the British Museum. They have, as far as possible, been incorporated in a conjectural restoration in the Etruscan Saloon (Plate III.).[348] It will be noted that most of the slabs are pierced with holes, by means of which they were attached to the walls or surface of the entablature; they are mostly decorated with lotos-and-honeysuckle and other patterns, in relief and coloured, the same being repeated in colour only on the back of the overhanging edges of the cornice. These remains belong to two periods, the end of the sixth century and the fourth century B.C.; they may be easily distinguished by the differences in the treatment of the ornamental patterns, while there is a marked absence of colouring in the later remains. Similar architectural remains in terracotta have been found in Etruria, and are described in