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How the Greeks Built Cities
By R. E. Wycherley
Town-planning and town-building are matters of peculiar interest today; new towns are being designed and great old cities are rising in new forms from their ruins, slowly and with difficulty, as did Athens and Miletus after the Persian Wars. In these circumstances the experience of the Greeks, who were great city-builders, has a renewed interest; and I think it will be found that in some things the principles of modern town-planning are akin to the way of the Greeks.
GROWTH OF THE GREEK CITY
THE Hellenic city-states grew slowly from modest beginnings in the course of the first half of the second millennium B.C. By the sixth century they had reached a high level of political development and had achieved great things in art and literature. In the latter part of the sixth century and the early years of the fifth the great Persian Empire threatened to engulf them; but by attaining for a time an unusual degree of unity and by fighting bravely and skilfully they averted the threat; and in the middle of the fifth century Greece, and especially Athens, rose to still greater heights of achievement. But in the closing decades ( 431-404 B.C.) nearly the whole Hellenic world was involved in the most disastrous of the wars of Greek against Greek which, with the equally incessant party strife within the cities, constantly sapped the strength of Greece. The fourth century still saw incomparable achievements in art, literature and philosophy; but the political vigour of the cities was weakening and finally they lost their independence to the rising power of Macedonia (the battle of Chaeronea, 338 B.C., was decisive). However, the 'Hellenistic' age which followed, when most of the Greek world was dominated by the kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander the Great of Macedon was divided, was by no means a mere age of decadence in the cities, least of all in architecture.
GREEK TOWN-PLANNING
IN the sixth and fifth centuries, when Hellenic civilization was well advanced and the architectural growth of the city-state pretty well complete, the Greeks were still frequently creating new cities -- colonies, capitals for federal states and leagues, and replacements of towns very thoroughly destroyed by the Persians and others. In such circumstances it would have been surprising if the inventive genius of the Greeks had not produced some way of town-planning, and attempted to create a city deliberately instead of simply letting it grow; and in fact by the fifth century practical needs had suggested methods, and at the same time architects had had visions of an ideal architectural form for the polis, and were attempting to put them into practice, though aesthetic theory was never allowed to predominate.
We have no means of knowing how the new methods came into being and were first applied, but there can be little doubt that their home was Ionia on the west coast of Asia Minor, and probably Miletus in particular. There is no evidence of planning in the western colonies until comparatively late, and the cities of Greece proper remained obstinately conservative in form. The archaic Ionians took the cultural lead in various directions, and in this matter in particular they had good opportunities for experiment, through colonization and through the need for rebuilding cities which had been razed.
FORTIFICATIONS
ABOUT the acropolis very little needs to be added. It was once the city's main bulwark, augmented at most by outworks of moderate size extending over the lower ground. In the fully developed city its rôle was more restricted, and it formed a great redoubt in the city wall, or less commonly an inner keep. The circuit walls were now the city's great defence, and no pains were spared to make them impregnable; they were no mere first line; with them the city stood or fell. When this phase was reached, an acropolis could be dispensed with; we hear (e.g. Pausanias viii. 8. 4, 12. 7 -- Mantinea) of cities abandoning their primitive site, with its acropolis, for one more convenient. Some later towns such as Priene and Heraclea (Latmos) possessed a sort of acropolis almost by accident -- an outlying piece of high ground taken in by the walls for reasons of strength and not necessarily fortified on the side of the town. New Miletus at first included in its walls the hill on the south which was the nucleus of the old town, but later abandoned it, a cross-wall being built in the lower ground. The size of the acropolis varied greatly from a small bastion to a vast circuit like the Acrocorinthus.
THE AGORA
ACCORDING to Herodotus (i. 153) Cyrus king of Persia said of the Greeks, 'I never yet feared the kind of men who have a place set apart in the middle of the city in which they get together and tell one another lies under oath'. Like other despots, he had a misplaced contempt for freer institutions; but at least he had sufficient insight into Greek life to regard the agora as particularly characteristic of the people. The word 'agora' is quite untranslatable, since it stands for something as peculiarly Hellenic as polls, or sophrosyne. One may doubt whether the public places of any other cities have ever seen such an intense and sustained concentration of varied activities. The agora was in fact no mere public place but the central zone of the city, its living heart. In spite of an inevitable diffusion and specialization of functions, it retained a real share of all its old miscellaneous functions. It remained essentially a single whole, or at least strongly resisted division. It was the constant resort of all citizens, and it did not spring to life on special occasions but was the daily scene of social life, business and politics.
Like the city as a whole, it began in a simple way. A fairly level open space was all that was needed. A good water supply was important, and satisfactory drainage. A roughly central site was adopted if possible, since the agora had to provide a convenient focus for city life in general and for the main streets which meandered through the residential quarters and radiated onwards through the country outside.
SHRINES AND OFFICIAL BUILDINGS
H AVING said repeatedly that the temple represents the flower of Greek architecture, I shall not attempt to do it full justice in this work; I shall merely try to indicate its place, and the place of shrines in general, in the scheme of the city, adding a little about its basic form. This method has some justification when most standard works on Greek architecture rightly allot the greater part of their space to the temple, its growth and the refinements of its classical form, including of course the great orders, which, though they were used in other buildings, were especially associated with the temple.
First of all, one should remember that there is no clear line between religious and secular in Greek architecture, any more than in Greek life. The whole city, indeed the whole land, was sacred to the gods, or to some deity in particular -- Athens to Athena, Argos to Hera, and so on. The relation could be expressed in various ways; the god watched over the city; the city belonged to the god, in a sense it was his shrine, and dedicated to him. The acropolis had its special sanctity, and so had the agora. The streets were associated with Hermes in particular, and at Athens his pillar-like images stood about them in large numbers.
GYMNASIUM, STADIUM AND THEATRE
GYMNASION means a place where people strip for exercise. Gymnastics played a great part in Greek life; gymnastike was complementary to mousike (music and literature) in the normal scheme of education. Suitable areas had to be set aside where boys and young men could run, ride, box, wrestle, throw the discus or play ball games. The gymnasium is to be thought of primarily as an extensive athletic ground rather than a closely knit architectural unit. It was a centre for mental as well as physical training, and inevitably became a centre of general social life, like the agora and the stoas. In time appropriate buildings were put up in and around the athletic ground -- stoas, baths, dressing-rooms, storerooms, class- and lecture-rooms and so forth. The palaestra or wrestling-ground was, strictly speaking, part of the gymnasium, though it could also exist in its own right. But it was an important part; and when athletic buildings attained a well-developed architectural form, the most characteristic part. So it is not surprising that the proper distinction between the two words is not maintained and they tend to become interchangeable.
GREEK HOUSES
THE Greek house is a fascinating but tantalizing subject. We would naturally like to form a clear picture of the setting in which the Greek spent his private life, but though here and there we get unobstructed and illuminating glimpses it would still be an understatement to say that there are large gaps in our knowledge. However, the evidence is now far greater and more reliable than when it was mainly drawn from somewhat obscure or even misleading accounts and references in ancient literature, especially since Olynthus has provided a good solid body of archaeological evidence for the late fifth and fourth centuries, to add to the later, mainly Hellenistic material. Several well developed house-types have emerged, bearing an interesting relation to one another; but the possibility of a complete and systematic account of the Greek house is still remote; it is impossible, for instance, to define which, if any, is the basic type and which are local variations. However, some features belong to all in common; and in any case the unsolved problems do not vitally affect the question of the place of domestic architecture in the structure of the city.
FOUNTAIN BUILDINGS
FOUNTAIN-HOUSES, which were both public monuments and necessities of domestic life, deserve a place in any account of the Greek city's architectural scheme. If I conclude with a brief appendix on them, it is not merely because I am committed to working through Pausanias' list (p. xix). They were of vital importance and received special care. Ancient writers frequently include them among the interesting features and adornments of a city. Pausanias, besides adding them to his list of essential elements, shows a marked interest in fountains, their architectural form and the quantity and quality of their water. Secondly, they illustrate particularly well the severe restraint of Greek architecture, the way in which, in all their efforts to achieve beauty, the architects kept a firm hold on the practical and the functional. Fountains make a very natural appeal to the artistic imagination; and in other ages artists have often let their fancies run riot in designing architecture and sculpture for them. With the Greeks it was quite the contrary. Apart from artistic principles, water supply was a serious, often desperately serious, matter, increasingly so as cities outgrew their original supplies. Efficient governments gave much thought to it; there were special magistrates, of high standing, appointed to take care of the fountains.
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