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rator, and its lower diameter as a denominator, both in English feet; the third is the quotient of the second, showing the height of the column, expressed in terms of its lower diameter; the fourth column shows the height of the entablature in terms of the diameter of the column; the fifth column gives the distance between the columns in the same terms; and the sixth shows the height of the capitals also in the same terms: —

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143. Casting our eye down the third column of the above table, we find the height of the column in terms of its lower diameter varying from 4.065 to 6.535. Lord Aberdeen (Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Greek Architecture, 1822) seems to prefer the proportion of the capital to the column, as a test for determining its comparative antiquity; but we are not, though it is entitled to great respect, of his opinion, preferring, as we do, a judgment from the height as compared with the diameter to any other criterion; although it must be admitted that it is not an infallible one. The last columns shows what an inconstant test the height of the capital exhibits. There is another combination, to which reference ought to be made, — the height of the entablature, which forms the third column of the table, in which it appears that the most massive is about one third the height of the whole order, and the lightest is about one fourth, and that these proportions coincide with the thickest and the thinnest columns.

144. The entasis or swelling, which the Greeks gave to their columns, and first verified by the observations of Mr. Allason, was a refinement introduced probably at a late period, though the mere diminution of them was adopted in the earliest times. The practice is said to have its type in the law which Nature observes in the formation of the trunks of trees. This diminution varies, in a number of examples, from one fifth to one third of the lower diameter; a mean of sixteen examples gives one fourth. The mere diminution is not, however, the matter for consideration; but the curved outline of the shaft, which is attributed to some refined perception of the Greeks.

relative to the apparent diminution of objects as their distance from the eye was increased, which Vitruvius imagines it was the object of the entasis to correct. It cannot be denied that in a merely conical shaft there is an appearance of concavity, for which it is difficult to account. The following explanation of this phenomenon, if it may be so called, is given by our esteemed and learned friend, Mr. Narrien, in the Encyc. Metropol. art. Architecture. "When," he observes, "we direct the axis of the eye to the middle of a tall column, the organ accommodates itself to the distance of that part of the object, in order to obtain distinctness of vision, and then the oblique pencils of light from the upper and lower parts of the column do not so accurately converge on the retina: hence arises a certain degree of obscurity, which always produces a perception of greater magnitude than would be produced by the same object if seen more distinctly. The same explanation may serve to account for the well-known fact, that the top of an undiminished pilaster appears so much broader than the body of its shaft; to which, in this case, may be added some prejudice, caused by our more frequently contemplating other objects, as trees, which taper towards their upper extremities." Connected in some measure with the same optical deception is the rule which Vitruvius lays down (book iii. chap. 2.) for making the columns, at the angles of buildings, thicker than those in the middle by one fiftieth part of a diameter, a law which we find followed out to a much greater extent in the temples of the Parthenon and of Theseus, at Athens, where the columns at the angles exceed in diameter the intermediate ones by one forty-fourth and one twenty-eighth respectively. Where, however, the columns were viewed against a dark ground, some artists think that a contrary deception of the eye seems to take place.

145. In the investigation of the Doric order, among its more remarkable features are to be noted the longitudinal striæ, called flutes, into which the column is cut; every two whereof unite, in almost every case, in an edge. Their horizontal section varies in different examples. In some, the flutes are formed by segments of circles; in others, the form approaches that of an ellipsis. The number all round is usually twenty; such being the case at Athens; but at Pæstum the exterior order of the great temple has twenty-four, the lower interior order twenty, and the upper interior sixteen only. It has been strangely imagined, by some, that these flutings, which, be it remembered, are applied to the other orders as well as to the Doric, were provided for the reception of the spears of persons visiting the temples. The conjecture is scarcely worth refutation, first, because no situation for the doupodokη (place for spears) would have led to their more continual displacement from accident; and secondly, because of the sloping or hemispherical form in the other orders, the foot of the spear must have immediately slid off. Their origin may probably be found in the polygonal column, whose sides received a greater play of light by being hollowed out, — s refinement which would not be long unperceived by the Greeks.

146. We shall now notice some of the more important Doric edifices, as connected with the later history of the Doric order, which was that most generally used by the European states of Greece, up to their subjugation by the Romans. The temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, at Egina, is probably one of the most ancient in Greece. The story, however, of Pausanias, that it was built by acus, before the war of Troy, is only useful as showing us its high antiquity. (Fig. 96.) The proportions of its columns and entablature are to be

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found in a preceding page. The sculpture with which this building was decorated is now at Munich. Though, perhaps, not so old as the building itself, it is of an antiquity coeval with the Persian invasion. The name of the architect of this temple was Libon, of whom no other work is known; its age is, perhaps, from about 600 years before Christ. The Doric temple at Corinth, of which five columns, with their architrave, are still in existence, is a very early specimen of Grecian architecture. The assertion that it was dedicated to Venus is unsupported by testimony.

147. The Grecian temples in Sicily were erected at periods which it is not easy to fix; and with respect to them, we can only, from circumstances connected with the island, reason on the dates to be assigned to them. The founding of the city of Selinus or Selinuns, on the south-west coast of the island, has usually been attributed to a colony from Megara; but we are of opinion with the Baron Pisani (Memoria sulle Metope Selinuntine) that it existed as a Phoenician city long previous to the settlement there by the Megaræans. The style and forms of the sculpture of the Selinuntine temples seem to bear marks of a remoter age than is usually allowed to them, that is, 500 B. C.; they are dated 600 8.c. by Angell & Evans. (See B. III.) Of the means and the circumstances under which the temples were raised we are ignorant; but their ruins sufficiently indicate the wealth and power that were employed upon them, as well as a considerably advanced state of the art. 148. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, the largest in the island, and one of the most stupendous monuments of antiquity, was, as we learn from Diodorus (lib. xiii. p. 82.), never completed. The Agrigentines were occupied upon it when the city was taken by Hamilcar, cir. 247 B. C. Its columns were on such a scale that their flutes were sufficiently large to receive the body of a man. The temples of Peace and of Concord, in the few vestiges that remain of them, attest the ancient magnificence of the city of Agrigentum, and are among the most beautiful as well as the best preserved remains of antiquity. A Corinthian colony established itself at Syracuse, as is said, 750 BC.; but no details of the history of the city furnish us with the means of ascertaining when the first temples there were erected. Its riches and magnificence were, however, such that it soon became an object of temptation to the Carthaginians. Its temple of Minerva is evidently of very remote antiquity.

149. The great Hypæethral temple at Pæstum was probably constructed during the period that the city was under the power of the Sybarites, who dispossessed its original inhabitants, enjoying, for upwards of two hundred years, the fruits of their usurpation. Marks of Greek art are visible in it, and the antiquity of the Hypæethral temple itself is confirmed by the example. The city fell into the hands of the Lucanians about 350 years B.C.; after which, in about 70 years, it was a municipal town of the Roman empire. The following is perhaps the chronological order of the principal buildings of Sicily and Magna Græcia, viz. Syracuse, Pæstum, Selinus, Segeste, and Agrigentum.

150. The dates of the edifices at Athens are, without difficulty, accurately fixed. The Propylæum (figs. 97 and 98.) was commenced by Mnesicles about 437 B.C., and, at a great

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expense, was completed in five years. It is a specimen of the military architecture of the period, and at the same time forms a fine entrance to the Acropolis of Athens. At the rear of its Doric portico the roof of the vestibule was supported within by two rows of Ionic columns, whose bases still remain. By the introduction of these an increased height was obtained for the roof, the abaci of the Ionic capitals being thus brought level with the ex

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terior frieze of the building. The Parthenon (figs. 99. and 100.) erected a few years later. under the superintendence of Ictinus, is well known as one of the finest remains of antiquity

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As well as the building last mentioned, it was reared at the period when Pericles had the management of public affairs, and was without a rival in Athens. Phidias was the superintendent sculptor employed; and many of the productions which decorated this magnificent edifice have doubtless become known to the reader in his visits to the British Museum, where a large portion of them are now deposited. Nearly coeval with the Propylæum and Parthenon, or perhaps a little earlier, is the temple of Theseus (fig. 101.), which was, it is supposed, erected to receive the ashes of the national hero, when removed from SeyroS to Athens. The ruins of the architectural monuments of this city attest that the boasted power and opulence of Greece was not an idle tale. Pericles, indeed, was charged by his enemies with having brought disgrace upon the Athenians by removing the public trea

sures of Greece from Delos, and lavishing them in gilding their city, and ornamenting it

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with statues and temples that cost a thousand talents, as a proud and vain woman tricks herself out with jewels. (Plutarch's Life of Pericles.) The temple of Minerva, at Sunium, was probably by Ictinus; but one of the happiest efforts of this architect was the temple of Apollo Epicurius, in Arcadia, still nearly entire. The peculiarities found in it we will shortly detail. The front has six columns, and instead of thirteen in each flank (the usual number) there are fifteen. In the interior, buttresses on each side, to the number of six, re

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turn inwards from the walls of the cell, each ending in semicircular pilasters of the Ionic order. These seem to have been brought up for the facility of supporting the roof, which was of stone. With the exception of the temple of Minerva at Tegea, its reputation for beauty was such, that it surpassed, if that be a true test, all other buildings in Peloponnesus. Its situation is about three or four miles from the ruins of Phigalia, on an elevated part of Mount Cotylus, commanding a splendid landscape, which is terminated by the sea in the distance. 151. About 370 B.C., Epaminondas restored the Messenians to independence, and built the city of Messene. The ruins still extant prove that the art at that period had not materially declined. Its walls, in many parts, are entire, and exhibit a fine example of Grecian military architecture in their towers and gates. At no distant time from the age in question the portico of Philip of Macedon, at least his name is inscribed on it, shows that the Doric order had undergone a great change in its proportions. This portico must have been erected about 338 B. c., and after it the Ionic order seems to have been more favoured and cultivated. The last example of the Doric is perhaps the portico of Augustus, at Athens. 152. Before proceeding to the investigation of the Ionic order, it may here, perhaps, be as well to speak of the proportions between the length and breadth of temples, as compared with the rules given by Vitruvius (book iv. chap. 4.), that the length of a temple shall be double its breadth, and the cell itself in length one fourth part more than the breadth, including the wall in which the doors are placed. Though in the Greek examples these proportions are approximated, an exact conformity with the rule is not observed in any. The length, for instance, of the temple of Jupiter, at Selinus, is to the breadth as 2.05 to 1; in the temple of Theseus, as 2.3 to 1; and from the mean of six examples of the Doric order, selected in Greece and Sicily, is 2-21 to 1. If the flanks be regulated in length by making the number of intercolumniations exactly double those in front, it will be immediately seen that the proportions of Vitruvius are obtained on a line passing through the axes of the columns. But as in most of the Greek temples the central intercolumniation in front is wider than the rest, the length of the temple would necessarily be less than twice the width. In the earlier specimens of the Doric order the length is certainly, as above mentioned in the temple of Jupiter at Selinus, very nearly in accordance with the rule; but in order to counteract the effect of the central intercolumniation being wider, the number of columns, instead of intercolumniations on the flank, is made exactly double those in front. In the later examples, however, as in the temples of Theseus and the Parthenon, and some others, the number of intercolumniations on the flank was made double the number of columns in the front, whence the number of columns on the flanks was double the number of those in front and one more; so that the proportion became nearly in the ratio of 2.3 to 1. The simplicity which flowed from these arrangements in the Grecian temples was such that it seems little more than arithmetical architecture,-so symmetrical that from the three data, the diameter of the column, the width of the intercolumniation, and the number of columns in front, all the other parts might be found.

153. The IONIC order, at first chiefly confined to the states of Asia Minor, appears to have been coeval with the Doric order. The most ancient example of it on record is the temple of Juno, at Samos. Herodotus (Euterpe) says, it was one of the most stupendous edifices erected by the Greeks. In the Ionian Antiquities (2d edit. vol. i. c. 5.) is to be found an account of its ruins. It was erected about 540 years B.c., by Rhacus and Theodorus, two natives of the island. The octastyle temple of Bacchus, at Teos, in whose praise Vitruvius was lavish, shows by its ruins that the old master of our art was well capable of appreciating the beauties of an edifice. Hermogenes, of Alabanda, was its architect, and he seems to have been the promoter of a great change in the taste of his day. Vitruvius

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