Propylaeum, Propylaea

(προπύλαιον, προπύλαια). (The singular and plural forms seem not to have differed in meaning. The gateway to the Athenian acropolis went almost invariably under the name Προπύλαια, but it is called Προπύλαιον in a contemporary official inscription (C. I. A. i. 314). The elder Pliny uses propylon for the same structure.) A gate-building, serving generally as an entrance to a sacred precinct. A city-gate is never so called.

The most important edifice of this kind, both architecturally and historically, and also the best preserved, is that designed by Mnesicles, and built in the years B.C. 437-432, as an entrance to the Athenian acropolis. The material is chiefly Pentelic marble; black Eleusinian marble is sparingly used for thresholds, wall-bases, etc.; the foundations are, in part, of Piraeus limestone (poros). The diagram shows the ground-plan both as originally designed and as actually carried out. (The unshaded parts were not built.) The central and essential part of the structure consists of two parallel lateral walls terminating in antae; a cross-wall, placed much nearer the eastern than the western front, and pierced by five doorways of three different widths; and two Doric hexastyle porticos, the greater or western one of which included six Ionic columns, placed three on each side of the central passage-way, and helping to support the flat ceiling. The whole was completely roofed over. The central and broadest of the five doorways was intended for processions, for animals, and perhaps also for wheeled vehicles; the other four, designed for ordinary pedestrians, were approached from the west by five steps. Each of the five doorways was provided originally with double doors. The central structure thus far described constituted the Propylaea proper. To this Mnesicles designed extensive wings, the like of which are not found with any other known Propylaea. Of these wings, only one, the northwestern, was carried out according to the design. This consists of a rectangular closed chamber and a Doric portico, whose three columns are much smaller than those of the central structure. The chamber was entered by a door in its south wall. On either side of the door was a window. Pausanias speaks of this northwestern wing as “a building to the left of the Propylaea containing pictures,” whence it is often called the Pinacotheca by modern writers. The southwestern wing was to have been of the same dimensions as the northwestern, but of a different plan, with an open row of columns towards the west in place of a closed wall. This project had to be greatly changed; it is probable that unexpected opposition was raised to the destruction of a piece of venerable Pelasgic wall, and to encroachment on the precinct of Athena Niké. As a result this wing became a shrunken and abnormal structure, with a free-standing double anta at the northwestern corner and a unique form of roof. Again, Mnesicles designed two great porticos flanking the Propylaea and fronting eastward. These were both given up, the one probably because it would have encroached upon the precinct of Artemis Brauronia, the other perhaps in consequence of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Even those parts of the whole edifice which were actually erected did not everywhere receive the finishing touch. The most obvious evidence of this is the existence of numerous rough bosses on the exposed surfaces of the marble blocks. These bosses were for assistance in hoisting the blocks, and were intended to be subsequently worked off.

The Propylaeum of Mnesicles was a building of great originality and skill, and, though it lacks something of the perfect simplicity and harmony of a Doric temple of the same period, it must still be ranked as one of the greatest achievements of Greek architecture. The artistic forms are admirable, the Ionic capitals being especially noteworthy for combined vigour and refinement; the workmanship is of unsurpassed precision. The juxtaposition of different orders, necessitated by the greater height required for the interior columns, is by some considered unfortunate. There is a similar juxtaposition in the temple of Athené Alea at Tegea, where the columns of the peristyle were Doric and those of the pronaos and opisthodomos Corinthian (probably). Owing to the width required for the principal entrance-way, the central intercolumniations on the east and west fronts are much greater than the others, with the result that there are two triglyphs instead of one over the central intercolumniations. This asymmetry would not be found in a temple. In consequence of the rise of the ground, the eastern pediment is nearly one and a half metres higher than the western. This superposition would have been very disagreeable if seen, but must have been invisible from most of the possible points of view. See Athenae, p. 155 (illustration).

The Propylaeum of Mnesicles was built on the site of an earlier and smaller structure of the same sort, of which slight traces can still be seen. Other remains of propylaea exist at Eleusis, Epidaurus, Olympia, Delos, and Priené.

See Bohn, Die Propyläen der Akropolis zu Athen (1882); W. Dörpfeld in the Mittheilungen des arch. Instituts in Athen, x. 38-56, 131-144 (1885). From these sources most of the foregoing material has been derived. Also F. C. Penrose, Principles of Athenian Architecture (2d ed. 1888). L. Fenger's Dorische Polychromie (1886) devotes a plate to the polychromy of the Athenian Propylaea.