Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/143

 GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 85 ante-chamber with stone staircases on either side. The cella walls were ornamented with Ionic pilasters, six feet wide and three feet deep, resting on a continuous podium, ranging with the peristyle level. These pilasters were crowned with capitals of varied design, having between them a sculptured band of griffins and lyres. At the eastern (entrance) end on either side of the doorway were half-columns having Corinthian capitals, the acanthus leaves being unusually placed and the central volutes undeveloped. At the western end of the cella Messrs. Rayet and Thomas discovered the foundations of a shrine. The peristyle columns of the Ionic order are fluted, and the bases are of very varied design, being octagonal with carved panels on each face. THE CORINTHIAN ORDER. The Corinthian Order (Nos. 33 f, 38 e, 43 a, b, c), which is still more ornate than the Ionic, was little used by the Greeks. The column, the base and shaft of which resemble those of the Ionic, is generally about ten times the diameter in height, including the capital, and is placed on a stylobate in the same manner as the other orders. The distinctive capital is much deeper than the Ionic, being about one to one-and-one-sixth diame- ters in height. The origin of the capital is still unknown. It may have been derived from the Ionic, such as the Erechtheion example, where bands of sculpture occur beneath the scrolls, or it may have been borrowed from the bell-shaped capitals of the Egyptians, with the addition of the Assyrian spiral. Callimachus of Corinth, a worker in Corinthian bronze, is some- times referred to as the reputed author of the capital, and as the earlier examples appear to have been of this metal, the name may have been derived from the fact, for Pliny (xxxiv. chap, iii.) refers to a portico which was called Corinthian, from the bronze capitals of the pillars. It consists normally of a deep bell on which were carved two tiers of eight acanthus leaves, and between those of the upper row eight caulicoli (caulis = a stalk) surmouhted by a curled leaf or calyx, from which spring the volutes (also known as caulicoli and helices by different authorities) supporting the angles of the abacus, and the small central volutes supporting a foliated ornament. The abacus is moulded and curved on plan on each face, the mouldings at the angles either being brought to a point as in the Temple of Apollo Didymaeus, at Miletus, Temple of Jupiter Olympius, at Athens (No. 43 a), and the St( a or Portico, Athens (No. 33 F, g), or having their edges chamfered off as in the Monument of Lysicrates (No. 38 e).