Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/133

 GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 75 liexastyle temple with fifteen columns on each flank, all built up in drums. The principal facade faces north, an unusual arrange- ment, and apparently due to its erection on the site of an earlier temple. The statue of Apollo was placed to one side at the southern end of the cella forming the sanctuary of the earlier building, which was orientated, light being admitted by an open- ing in the eastern wall. Owing to the narrowness of the cella, internal rows of columns were avoided, but instead of these a range of five fluted Ionic half-columns on each side forming the ends of short cross walls connected to the cella walls. The two columns furthest from the entrance on each side are joined to walls placed diagonally with those of the cella. The single column at the southern end was of the Corinthian order, and is generally referred to as the earliest example known (No. 27 G, h, j). The lighting of the interior is conjectural, but the cella north of the more ancient sanctuary was probably hypsethral or had openings in order to admit top-light to the celebrated frieze above the internal half-columns (No. 27 b, d, e). These have a new and original treatment of the capital, with angle volutes, and have boldly moulded bases (No. 29 n, o, p). The sculptured frieze, about 2 feet in height and 100 feet in length, represents the battles of the Centaurs and Lapithae, and the Athenians and Amazons. The building is constructed of a hard grey limestone, which being covered with a beautiful pink lichen of the district has a very picturesque appearance. The roof was covered with Parian marble slabs, measuring 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and less than 2 inches in thickness. The ceiling of the peristyle was very richly treated in marble panels or lacunaria, and those to the pronaos and opisthodomos had marble beams in addition. The Temple of Zeus Olympius, Agrigentum (b.c. 480) (No. 28 M, N, o), of which Theron was the architect, is of excep- tional design, and ranks as second in size among Grecian examples. It is pseudo-peripteral septastyle in plan, having seven half-columns on the front and fourteen on each side. These half-columns are of great size, being 13 feet in diameter, and are represented inter- nally by flat pilasters. The triple cella is of immense size and is believed to have been lighted by windows high in the wall. The building was never completed, the illustrations being from restorations by Professor Cockerell. Owing to its immense size, structural truth (usually so important in Greek buildings) had to be sacrificed, the order being built up of small pieces, which in features like the echinus, abacus, and architrave is a departure from Greek principles, as is also the use of attached half-columns. The architrave is supported not only by the half-columns, but by the intervening screen wall to which they are attached.