CHAPTER V

GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD.

CONTENTS.

Decline of art—Temples at Denderah—Kalábsheh—Philæ.

The third stage of Egyptian art is as exceptional as the two which preceded it, and as unlike anything else which has occurred in any other lands.

From the time of the 19th dynasty, with a slight revival under the Bubastite kings of the 22nd dynasty, Egypt sank through a long period of decay, till her misfortunes were consummated by the invasion of the Persians under Cambyses, 525 B.C. From that time she served in a bondage more destructive, if not so galling, as that of the Shepherd domination, till relieved by the more enlightened policy of the Ptolemys. Under them she enjoyed as great material prosperity as under her own Pharaohs; and her architecture and her arts too revived, not, it is true, with the greatness or the purity of the great national era, but still with much richness and material splendour.

This was continued under the Roman domination, and, judging from what we find in other countries, we would naturally expect to find traces of the influence of Greek and Roman art in the buildings of this age. So little, however, is this the case, that before the discovery of the reading of the hieroglyphic signs, the learned of Europe placed the Ptolemaic and Roman temples of Denderah and Kalábsheh before those of Thebes in order of date; and could not detect a single moulding in the architectural details, nor a single feature in the sculpture and painting which adorned their walls, which gave them a hint of the truth. Even Cleopatra the beautiful is represented on these walls with distinctly Egyptian features, and in the same tight garments and conventional forms as were used in the portrait of Nophre Ari, Queen of Rameses, or in those of the wives of the possessors of tombs in the age of the pyramids, 3000 years before. Egypt in fact conquered her conquerors, and forced them to adopt her customs and her arts, and to follow in the groove she had so long marked out for herself, and followed with such strange pertinacity.

Some of the temples of this age are, as far as dimensions and richness of decorations are concerned, quite worthy of the great age, though their plans and arrangements differ to a considerable extent. There is no longer any hesitation as to whether they should be called temples or palaces, for they all are exclusively devoted to worship,—and to the worship of a heavenly God, not of a deified king.

What these arrangements are will be well understood from the annexed plan of that of Edfû (Woodcut No. 37), which, though not the largest, is the most complete of those remaining. It is 450 ft. in length and 155 in width, and covers upwards of 70,000 ft.; its dimensions may be said to be equal to those of the largest of our mediæval cathedrals (Cologne or Amiens, for instance). Parts only—viz., the court C, and areas M M M—of the whole structure are roofed, and therefore it can scarcely be compared with buildings entirely under one roof.

[Illustration: 37. Plan of Temple at Edfû, Apollinopolis Magna. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

In front of the temple are two large and splendid pylons, with the gateway in the centre, making up a façade 225 ft. in extent. Although this example has lost its crowning cornice, its sculptures and ornaments are still very perfect, and it may altogether be considered as a fair specimen of its class, though inferior in dimensions to many of those of the Pharaonic age. Within these is a court, 140 ft. by 161, surrounded by a colonnade on three sides, and on the fourth side the porch or portico which, in Ptolemaic temples, takes the place of the great hypostyle halls of the Pharaohs. It is lighted from the front over low screens placed between each of the pillars, a peculiarity scarcely ever found in temples of earlier date, though apparently common in domestic edifices, or those formed of wood, certainly as early as the middle of the 18th dynasty, as may be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 39), taken from a tomb of one of the sun-worshipping kings, who reigned between Amenhotep III. and Horus. From this we pass into an inner and smaller porch, and again through two passages to a dark and mysterious sanctuary, surrounded by darker passages and chambers, well calculated to mystify and strike with awe any worshipper or neophyte who might be admitted to their gloomy precincts.

[Illustration: 38. View of Temple at Edfû as it was, before it was cleared out and the dwellings on the roof removed.]

The celebrated temple at Denderah is similar to this, and slightly larger, but it has no fore-court, no propylons, and no enclosing outer walls. Its façade is given in the woodcut (No. 40). Its Isis-headed columns are not equal to those of Edfû in taste or grace; but it has the advantage of situation, and this temple is not encumbered either by sand or huts, which still disfigure so many Egyptian temples. Its effect, consequently, on travellers is always more striking.

The Roman temple at Kalábsheh (Woodcuts Nos. 42 and 43), above the Cataract, is a fair specimen of these temples on a smaller scale. The section (Woodcut No. 43) shows one of the modes by which a scanty light was introduced into the inner cells, and their gradation in height. The position, too, of its propylons is a striking instance of the irregularity which distinguishes all the later Egyptian styles from that of the rigid, proportion-loving pyramid builders of Memphis.

[Illustration: 39. Bas-relief at Tel el Amarna.]

[Illustration: 40. Façade of Temple at Denderah. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]

This irregularity of plan was nowhere carried to such an extent as in the Ptolemaic temple on the island of Philæ (Woodcut No. 45). Here no two buildings, scarcely any two walls, are on the same axis or parallel to one another. No Gothic architect in his wildest moments ever played so freely with his lines or dimensions, and none, it must be added, ever produced anything so beautifully picturesque as this. It contains all the play of light and shade, all the variety, of Gothic art, with the massiveness and grandeur of the Egyptian style; and as it is still tolerably entire, and retains much of its colour, there is no building out of Thebes that gives so favourable an impression of Egyptian art as this. It is true it is far less sublime than many, but hardly one can be quoted as more beautiful.

Notwithstanding its irregularity, this temple has the advantage of being nearly all of the same age, and erected according to one plan, while the greater buildings at Thebes are often aggregations of parts of different ages; and though each is beautiful in itself, the result is often not quite so harmonious as might be desired. In this respect the Ptolemaic temples certainly have the advantage, inasmuch as they are all of one age, and all completed according to the plan on which they were designed; a circumstance which, to some extent at least, compensates for their marked inferiority in size and style, and the littleness of all the ornaments and details as compared with those of the Pharaonic period. It must at the same time be admitted that this inferiority is more apparent in the sculpture of the Ptolemaic age than in its architecture. The general design of the buildings is frequently grand and imposing, but the details are always inferior; and the sculpture and painting, which in the great age add so much to the beauty of the whole, are in the Ptolemaic age always frittered away, ill-arranged, unmeaning, and injurious to the general effect instead of heightening and improving it.

[Illustration: 41. Pillar, from the Porticocat Denderah.]

[Illustration: 42. Plan of Temple at Kalábsheh. Scale 100 ft. 1 in.]

On the east side of the island is the very beautiful structure known as “Pharaoh’s bed” (n). It is an oblong rectangular building of late date, surrounded by an intercolumnar screen with 18 columns. It was roofed with stone slabs supported on wooden beams, the sockets to receive which still exist. There is a doorway on the west wall, and another on the east wall opening on to a stone terrace or quay. Similar structures are believed to have existed at Thebes, close to the river, and connected by causeways with the temples; they may therefore have served as halls from which the processions started after disembarking from the boats on the river.

Strange as it may at first sight appear, we know less of the manners and customs of the Egyptian people during the Greek and Roman domination, than we do of them during the earlier dynasties. All the buildings erected after the time of Alexander which have come down to our time are essentially temples. Nothing that can be called a palace or pavilion has survived, and no tombs, except some of Roman date at Alexandria, are known to exist. We have consequently no pictures of gardens, with their villas and fish-ponds; no farms, with their cattle; no farmyards, with their geese and ducks; no ploughing or sowing; no representations of the mechanical arts; no dancing or amusements; no arms or campaigns. Nothing, in short, but worship in its most material and least intellectual form.

[Illustration: 43. Section of Temple at Kalábsheh. 50 ft. to 1 in.]

It is a curious inversion of the usually received dogmata on this subject, but as we read the history of Egypt as written on her monuments, we find her first wholly occupied with the arts of peace, agricultural and industrious, avoiding war and priestcraft, and eminently practical in all her undertakings. In the middle period we find her half political, half religious; sunk from her early happy position to a state of affairs such as existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. In her third and last stage we find her fallen under the absolute influence of the most degrading superstition. We know from her masters that she had no political freedom and no external influence at this time; but we hardly expected to find her sinking deeper and deeper into superstition, at a time when the world was advancing forward with such rapid strides in the march of civilisation, as was the case between the ages of Alexander and that of Constantine. It probably was in consequence of this retrograde course that her civilisation perished so absolutely and entirely under the influence of the rising star of Christianity; and that, long before the Arab conquest, not a trace of it was left in any form. What had stood the vicissitudes of 3000 years, and was complete and stable under Hadrian, had vanished when Constantine ascended the throne.

[Illustration: 44. View of Temple at Philæ.]

[Illustration: 45. Plan of Temple at Philæ. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

If, however, their civilisation passed so suddenly away, their buildings remain to the present day; and taken altogether, we may perhaps safely assert that the Egyptians were the most essentially a building people of all those we are acquainted with, and the most generally successful in all they attempted in this way. The Greeks, it is true, surpassed them in refinement and beauty of detail, and in the class of sculpture with which they ornamented their buildings, while the Gothic architects far excelled them in constructive cleverness; but with these exceptions no other styles can be put in competition with them. At the same time, neither Grecian nor Gothic architects understood more perfectly all the gradations of art, and the exact character that should be given to every form and every detail. Whether it was the plain flat-sided pyramid, the crowded and massive hypostyle hall, the playful pavilion, or the luxurious dwelling—in all these the Egyptians understood perfectly both how to make the general design express exactly what was wanted, and to make every detail, and all the various materials, contribute to the general effect. They understood, also, better than any other nation, how to use sculpture in combination with architecture, and to make their colossi and avenues of sphinxes group themselves into parts of one great design, and at the same time to use historical paintings, fading by insensible degrees into hieroglyphics on the one hand, and into sculpture on the other—linking the whole together with the highest class of phonetic utterance. With the most brilliant colouring, they thus harmonised all these arts into one great whole, unsurpassed by anything the world has seen during the thirty centuries of struggle and aspiration that have elapsed since the brilliant days of the great kingdom of the Pharaohs.

SERAPEUM AND APIS MAUSOLEUM.

The remains of the Serapeum and the burial-places of the sacred bulls (who, when alive, were worshipped at Memphis), were discovered by M. Mariette in 1860-61. Of the former, sufficient traces were found to show that it resembled in its arrangement the ordinary Egyptian temple, viz., with pylons, preceded by an avenue of sphinxes, and an enclosed space behind, with halls and chambers, in one of which was the opening to the inclined passage leading to the subterranean galleries. The earlier tombs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties were hewn in the rocky platform. From the 22nd to the 25th dynasty the bulls were buried in a subterranean gallery. The same system was adopted from the 26th dynasty till the time of the later Ptolemies (_circa_ 50 B.C.), but the galleries were of greater size and magnificence, having an extent of 400 yards, and the bulls were interred in immense granite sarcophagi placed in niches, on both sides of the galleries, but never opposite to one another. The chief historical value of the discovery rests in the steles, or inscribed tablets, some 500 in number, placed there as ex-votos by pious visitors, the principal examples of which are now in the Gizeh Museum or in the Louvre.

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