grooves to resemble the folds in female attire. Thus in the two styles of column one symbolised the naked male figure, the other the fully dressed female. Of course this measure did not remain, for those who came later, with finer critical taste, preferred less massiveness (or taller women?) and so fixed the height of the Doric column at seven, and the Ionian at nine, times the mean diameter.
“How to forbid oneself to elucidate reality—that is the problem, the difficulty. How to restore the wonder to human geometry—that is the crux of the matter. I do not feel that this marble reproaches us for a finer science, a truer engineering, but for a poorer spirit. That is the rub. It is not our instruments which fault us, but the flaccid vision. And yet … to what degree were they conscious of what they were doing? Perhaps like us they felt the fatal flaw, saw ruin seeping into the foundations as they built? We shall never know the answer to this—it is too late. But we, like them, were presumably sent here to try and enlarge infinity. Otherwise why should we read all this into this bundle of battered marble? Our science is the barren midwife of matter—can we make her fruitful?
“But what, you will ask, of the diurnal man? What of his housing? We can of course see that the individual house bears the shadowy narcissistic image of himself embedded even in its most utilitarian forms. The head, the stomach, the breast. The drawing room, bedroom , the kitchen. I will not enlarge on this. All the vents are there. I would rather consider the town, the small town, whose shape canembody both trade and worship. Now Vitruvius, in common with the whole of classical opinion, describes the navel as the central point of the human body. For my part the argument that the genital organ forms the real centre has more appeal to one who has always kept a stiff prick in an east wind. But I have only once met with it, and then in a somewhat corrupt text—Varro! But perhaps this was mere Roman politics, an attempt to oust the Delphic omphalos as the true centre of the world? That would be very Roman, very subtle, to try and oust the deep-rooted matriarchal principle and set up father-rule in order to promote the power of the state. This is as may be. Let us deliberate for a moment on the little town itself.
“Do you remember the rite practised specially by the Mediterranean nations in town-building? It was established around a previously marked-out centre, the so-called mundus. This centre was a circular pit into which they poured the first fruits and the gifts of consecration. After this the limits of the town were set by a circular boundary line drawn round the mundus as a centre of ritual ploughing . The simple pit or fossa ,the lower part of which was sacred dis manibus to the spirits of the dead and the underworld Gods—was filled up and closed in with a round stone, the lapis manalis. Do you see the connection establishing itself between the two ideas— urbs and mundus?
“Then came other factors, deriving perhaps from old half- forgotten complexes—like the propitiatory building sacrifice, for example , which has hung on until today. On your way home look at the skeleton of the new gymnasium in Pancrati. Today the workmen killed a cock and smeared its blood over the pillars. But even closer at hand—do not the caryatids over there speak clearly of such a sacrifice? If ever they should be opened or fall down will we not find the traces of a woman’s body in one of them? A common and deeply rooted practice. In your great narrative poem on the bridge of Arta the same ceremony is mentioned—the girl bricked into the piers. It has hung on and on in the most obstinate fashion. Stupidity is infectious and society always tries to maintain the illness in its endemic state.
“Now comes the important question of orientation to be considered so that the inhabitants or worshippers might find themselveswithin the magnetic field (as we
“How to forbid oneself to elucidate reality—that is the problem, the difficulty. How to restore the wonder to human geometry—that is the crux of the matter. I do not feel that this marble reproaches us for a finer science, a truer engineering, but for a poorer spirit. That is the rub. It is not our instruments which fault us, but the flaccid vision. And yet … to what degree were they conscious of what they were doing? Perhaps like us they felt the fatal flaw, saw ruin seeping into the foundations as they built? We shall never know the answer to this—it is too late. But we, like them, were presumably sent here to try and enlarge infinity. Otherwise why should we read all this into this bundle of battered marble? Our science is the barren midwife of matter—can we make her fruitful?
“But what, you will ask, of the diurnal man? What of his housing? We can of course see that the individual house bears the shadowy narcissistic image of himself embedded even in its most utilitarian forms. The head, the stomach, the breast. The drawing room, bedroom , the kitchen. I will not enlarge on this. All the vents are there. I would rather consider the town, the small town, whose shape canembody both trade and worship. Now Vitruvius, in common with the whole of classical opinion, describes the navel as the central point of the human body. For my part the argument that the genital organ forms the real centre has more appeal to one who has always kept a stiff prick in an east wind. But I have only once met with it, and then in a somewhat corrupt text—Varro! But perhaps this was mere Roman politics, an attempt to oust the Delphic omphalos as the true centre of the world? That would be very Roman, very subtle, to try and oust the deep-rooted matriarchal principle and set up father-rule in order to promote the power of the state. This is as may be. Let us deliberate for a moment on the little town itself.
“Do you remember the rite practised specially by the Mediterranean nations in town-building? It was established around a previously marked-out centre, the so-called mundus. This centre was a circular pit into which they poured the first fruits and the gifts of consecration. After this the limits of the town were set by a circular boundary line drawn round the mundus as a centre of ritual ploughing . The simple pit or fossa ,the lower part of which was sacred dis manibus to the spirits of the dead and the underworld Gods—was filled up and closed in with a round stone, the lapis manalis. Do you see the connection establishing itself between the two ideas— urbs and mundus?
“Then came other factors, deriving perhaps from old half- forgotten complexes—like the propitiatory building sacrifice, for example , which has hung on until today. On your way home look at the skeleton of the new gymnasium in Pancrati. Today the workmen killed a cock and smeared its blood over the pillars. But even closer at hand—do not the caryatids over there speak clearly of such a sacrifice? If ever they should be opened or fall down will we not find the traces of a woman’s body in one of them? A common and deeply rooted practice. In your great narrative poem on the bridge of Arta the same ceremony is mentioned—the girl bricked into the piers. It has hung on and on in the most obstinate fashion. Stupidity is infectious and society always tries to maintain the illness in its endemic state.
“Now comes the important question of orientation to be considered so that the inhabitants or worshippers might find themselveswithin the magnetic field (as we
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