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Bassae (, – Bassai, meaning "little vale in the rocks" Hellenic Ministry of Culture: The Temple of Epicurean Apollo .) is an archaeological site in Oichalia, a municipality in the northeastern part of Messenia, Greece. In classical antiquity, it was part of Arcadia. Bassae lies near the village of Skliros, northeast of Figaleia, south of Andritsaina and west of Megalopolis. It is famous for the well-preserved mid- to late-5th century BC Temple of Apollo Epicurius.
Although this temple is geographically remote from major polities of ancient Greece, it is one of the most studied ancient because of its multitude of unusual features. Bassae was the first Greek site to be inscribed on the World Heritage List, in 1986.}.
The ancient writer Pausanias praises the temple as eclipsing all others in the Peloponnesos except the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea by the beauty of its stone and the harmony of its construction.Pausanias, 8.41.7 ff.
Pausanias described it in the 2nd century AD:
It was in use until the 4th- or 5th-century AD, when all pagan temples were forcibly closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. Probably because of the remoteness of the site, the temple remained unusually well-preserved. Depictions by artists, which begin in the early 19th century, show the pteron or external colonnade standing complete, and the architrave nearly so. The internal walls were a mass of fallen blocks, but relatively few had been removed for reuse, the normal fate of these conveniently sized pieces.
The temple is of a relatively modest size, with the stylobate measuring 38.3 by 14.5 metres Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae , World Heritage Site. containing a Doric order peristyle of six by fifteen columns (hexastyle). It has been proposed that there was a central space in the roof left open to admit light and air but there is no proof of this feature. The temple was constructed entirely out of grey Arcadian limestone Takis Theodoropoulos, "The temple of Apollo the Helper – Heritage" , UNESCO Courier, January 1996. except for the Bassae Frieze which was carved from marble (probably in ancient times colored with paint). Like most major temples it has three "rooms" or porches: the pronaos, plus a Cella and an opisthodomos. The naos may have housed a cult statue of Apollo, although it is also surmised that the single 'proto-Corinthian' capital discovered by Charles Robert Cockerell and subsequently lost at sea, may have topped the single column that stood in the centre of the naos, and have been intended as an aniconic representation of Apollo Borealis. The temple lacks some optical refinements found in the Parthenon, such as a subtly curved floor, though the columns have entasis.Dinsmoore 1933:207
The temple is unusual in that it has examples of all three of the classical orders used in ancient Greek architecture: Doric order, Ionic order, and Corinthian order. Doric columns form the peristyle while Ionic columns support the interior and a single Corinthian column features in the centre of the interior. The Corinthian capital is the earliest example of the order found to date.Lawrence, 179
It was relatively sparsely decorated on the exterior.William Dinsmoor made a detailed case for recognising former pedimental sculptures from Bassae, looted by Romans, in three pedimental figures of Niobids discovered at various times in the later nineteenth century on the site of the Gardens of Sallust, Rome (Dinsmoor, "The Lost Pedimental Sculptures of Bassae" American Journal of Archaeology 43.1 (January–March 1939:27-47). Inside, however, there was a continuous Ionic frieze showing Athenians in battle with Amazons and the engaged in battle with . This frieze's metopes were removed by Cockerell and taken to the British Museum in 1815 (they are still to be seen in the British Museum's Gallery 16, near the Elgin Marbles Bassae Sculpture, British Museum.). Cockerell decorated the walls of the Ashmolean Museum's Great Staircase and that of the Travellers Club with plaster casts of the same frieze.
In 1812, British antiquaries explored the remains. They took sculptures including 23 slabs from the Ionic cella frieze to Zante. They had been given permission to explore by Veli Pasha, the Ottoman Pasha of the Peloponnese, who was bribed to relinquish his claim on the finds, and the frieze was bought at auction by the British Museum in 1815. This frieze's metopes were removed personally by Cockerell. The frieze sculptures were published in Rome in 1814 and officially, by the British Museum in 1820. Other hasty visits resulted in further publications. The first fully published excavation was not begun until 1836; it was carried out by Russian archaeologists, among which the painter Karl Bryullov. Perhaps the most striking discovery was the oldest Corinthian order found to date. Some of the recovered artefacts are on display at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
In 1902, a systematic excavation of the area was carried out by the Greek Archaeological Society of Athens under archaeologist Konstantinos Kourouniotis along with Konstantinos Romaios and Panagiotis Kavvadias. Further excavations were carried out in 1959, 1970 and from 1975 to 1979, under the direction of Nikolaos Gialouris.
The temple of Apollo is presently covered in a white tent in order to protect the ruins from the elements. Conservation work is currently being carried out under the supervision of the Committee for the Conservation of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios of the Greek Ministry of Culture, which is based in Athens.
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