Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/148

 go COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. height of 29 feet, with the exception of the incised Hnes forming the sun-dial, above which on each face are sculptured figures, boldly executed to represent the eight principal winds (Nos. 43 D, e). The roof is formed of twenty-four equal sized blocks of marble, and was surmounted by a bronze Triton (see Vitruvius, L, chapter vi.). The Olympieion (Temple of Jupiter Olympius), Athens (No. 18 j), stands on the site of an earlier Doric temple commenced by Pisistratus, in B.C. 530. It was commenced by Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria in b.c. 174, Cossutius, a Roman architect, being employed ; hence it is often designated Roman architecture. It remained incompleted, and in B.C. 80 Sulla transported some of the columns to Rome for the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, as related by Pliny. The building was completed by Hadrian in A.D, 117, but only fifteen columns of the original one hundred and four forming the peristyle are standing. It was dipteral octastyle on plan, having twenty columns on the flanks, and occupied an area of 354 feet by 154 feet (equalling the Hypostyle Hall at Karnac), and was placed in the centre of a magnificent peribolus or enclosure, measuring 680 feet by 424 feet, part of the retaining wall of which still remains at the south-east corner. It is described by Vitruvius as hypaethral, but it was unfinished in his time. The peristyle columns were 6 feet 4 inches in diameter, and had a height of 56 feet — a proportion of about one to nine. The capitals (No. 43 a) are very fine specimens of the Corinthian order, and appear to date from both periods mentioned above. GREEK THEATRES. The Greek theatre was generally hollowed out of the slope of a hill near the city, and was unroofed, the performances taking place in the daytime. In plan (No. 34) it was usually rather more than a semicircle, being about two-thirds of a complete circle. The auditorium consisted of tiers of marble seats, rising one above the other, often cut out of the solid rock. Those spectators who sat at the extremities of the two wings thus faced towards the orchestra, but away from the stage. The Greek theatre, which was constructed more for choral than dramatic performances, had a circular " orchestra " or dancing place (corresponding to the stalls and pit of a modern theatre) in which the chorus chanted and danced. The orchestra was the " germ " of the Greek theatre. The stage was known as the logeion or " speaking place," its back-wall being the skcne ( = booth or tent for changing in), the latter name being preserved in the modern word " scene." The actors being few, the stage consisted of a long and narrow platform, with permanent background. To what height above the level of