Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae: The Mountain Temple of the Helper God

The Story of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae

Few ancient temples have a setting as wild and lonely as Bassae. Deep in the rugged mountains of the southwestern Peloponnese, on a rocky slope surrounded by oak trees and bare peaks, a gray limestone temple rises in near silence. It was built by the people of nearby Phigalia for Apollo Epicurius, which means Apollo the Helper, and it is one of the best preserved and most fascinating temples of classical Greece.

The travel writer Pausanias explains the god's title. He says the people of Phigalia gave Apollo this name because he had helped them during a plague, in the time of the Peloponnesian War. In gratitude, they built a new temple in his honor. Pausanias adds that its architect was Ictinus, the same man who designed the Parthenon in Athens, and he praised the temple as one of the most beautiful in the Peloponnese.

The temple is unusual in many ways. Most Greek temples face east, but this one runs north to south, perhaps following the line of an older shrine or the shape of the narrow mountain terrace. It has 6 columns across each end and 15 along each side, longer and narrower than most temples of its time. A door in the side wall of the inner chamber may have let light fall onto the cult statue.

Inside, the temple held surprises that make it a landmark in the history of architecture. The outer colonnade is Doric, but the inner chamber was lined with Ionic half columns. At its far end stood a single column with a capital decorated with acanthus leaves, the earliest known example of the Corinthian order, which would later become the favorite style of the Romans. Above the inner columns ran a sculpted frieze showing Greeks fighting Amazons, and Lapiths battling Centaurs.

The temple's remote location helped protect it, but it also meant that it was forgotten for centuries. In 1765 a French architect named Joachim Bocher came across the ruins while working in the region. In 1812 a group of European antiquarians excavated the site and removed the frieze, which was sold to the British Museum in London, where it is still displayed. The Corinthian capital found during the excavation was later lost.

In 1986 the Temple of Apollo Epicurius became the first site in Greece to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its stones had been weakened by earthquakes, frost and the passage of time, so in 1987 a vast protective tent was raised over it while specialists study and restore the monument. The tent changes the experience of visiting, but it also lets you see the conservation work up close.

Today Bassae is reached by a winding mountain road from the village of Andritsaina, and the journey is part of the adventure. Once there, walk around the temple to see its columns from every side, then look out across the mountains of Arcadia and Messenia that surround it. Few visitors make the trip, so you may enjoy one of the great masterpieces of Greek architecture in almost complete peace, just as the people of Phigalia did when they came to thank the helper god.