visiting Sicily
Segesta:
The
Temple
The Temple of Segesta This imposing construction stands solitary and solemn in the middle of a desert landscape. The temple was probably built in the last thirty years of the 5C BC, outside the double city walls. Considered one of the most important examples of Doric style, it stands on a stepped base, covering an upper area of 61.15 x 26.25 m, over which is a peristyle with 36 unfluted columns, 6 on the fronts and 14 along the sides, still bearing the entablature and tympanums. The columns, consisting of 10-12 drums, are 9.36 m high (including the capitals), with a diameter of 1.95 m (base) and 1.56 m (top), and intercolumns of 2.40 m. The temple is crowned by the entablature and tympanums with flat metopes on the two fronts. Based on the fact that the roof is missing, many scholars have suggested that the construction of the temple was interrupted in 409 BC. Others instead believe that, since Segesta was a rich city, the roof was voluntarily left out, and the temple used as an open-air enclosure devoted to Elymian rites, with a view to bestowing nobility to it in accordance with the Doric style of Greek temples. It seems likely that, during one of the rare periods of reduced political and military tension between Segesta and Selinunte, the Segestans might have turned to the renowned workmanship of Selinuntine architects to give their main Elymian sacred building the monumental appearance of a Greek temple.
