Olga Palagia, Scott Pike The Marble of the Bassai Frieze The Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai and its Architect—the Athenian Connection The Doric temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai near Phigaleia, situated in a mountainous area of ancient Arcadia, has attracted a lot of interest on account of its odd north-south orientation and its unusual design, which consists of a mixture of archaic elements and a number of innovations enhancing its interior. 1 Inside the cella an engaged Ionic colonnade combined with a solitary Corinthian column supported a sculptured Ionic frieze that ran along the top of the wall. The pronaos and opisthodomos of the temple carried sculptured metopes. 2 The north-south orientation and the archaic elements of the ground plan have been attributed to the influence of its archaic predecessor on the same site, whereas the imaginative blend of Doric and Ionic recalls both the Parthenon and the Propylaia on the Athenian Akropolis. 3 255 Fig. 1 – Herakles fights the amazons. Bassai frieze slab. British Museum 541 (©Trustees of the British Museum). 16 - PALAGIA-2.qxd 12/05/2009 14:23 Page 255