Archaeological Site of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios

Built at a high altitude, in the bare and rocky landscape of Bassae of Phigaleia in modern Ilia, the temple of Apollo Epikourios occupies a special place in the history of the ancient Greek architecture. It is one of the best surviving examples of the Classical period, with conservative and at the same time innovative features. It is the first Greek monument to be included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1986.

It is dated to 420 – 400 BC and it was a dedication of the inhabitants of the Arcadian city of Phigaleia, whose remains are located at a distance of approximately 13 kilometres southwest of Bassae. However, it is not the first temple they built in this holy place. Believing that he strengthened them in the conflict they had with the Lacedaemonians, the Phigaleians founded a temple in honour of Apollo in the Archaic years and worshiped him as “epikourios”, that is a helper in war woes. A few centuries later they worshipped him with the same epithet as a healer god because he saved them from a deadly pestilence.

The temple of the Classical times, which, though several losses, still stands today and it is the work of Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. Light-colored local limestone was used for its construction, while some parts of the roof, the column capitals of the cella (sekos) and the sculptural decoration were made out from marble. The classical temple has been founded on the natural rock, on a specially shaped plateau. Instead of the familiar orientation of ancient temples from east to west, the temple is built along the north-south axis, perhaps for cultic reasons connected to the Arcadian religious tradition, a phenomenon also known from other temples in the region. 

The monument combines elements of the three architectural orders of antiquity. The Doric order predominates, and we can distinguish a pronaos, a cella, an adyton and an opisthodomos. It has six columns on the narrow sides and fifteen on the long sides. Externally, the temple had a Doric frieze with unadorned metopes and triglyphs, while a relief decoration existed only on the inner metopes of the narrow sides. The prominent decorative element of the temple was the Ionic marble frieze, which was created by the famous sculptor Paionios and it ran around internally the cella of the temple, above the Ionic semi-columns. The frieze had a total length of 31 meters, and it is consisted of 23 marble slabs. Twelve of them depict an Amazonomachy and the remaining eleven, a Centauromachy.

During the first systematic excavation of the temple, in 1812, by a group of foreign scientists, the slabs were discovered under fallen architectural members. During the same research, the oldest Corinthian column capital in the history of Greek architecture was also found, which, however, was ultimately not saved. After an auction organized by the excavators themselves, the frieze and other sculptures of the temple ended up in the British Museum (1815), where they are currently exhibited. 

The extremely difficult reconstruction and restoration project of the monument is underway, while since 1987 the temple has been protected from adverse weather conditions with a special shelter that will be removed after the completion of the necessary works.
 

Copyediting: Ephorate of Antiquities of Ilia