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LEFT ARCHITECTUBE 232 ABCHITECTURE Egyptian. — The history of architec- ture may be said to begin with the con- struction of the Egyptian pyramids, 3,000 years or more before the birth of Christ, but not until 2570 B. c. do we CORINTHIAN ARCHITECTURE lind in Egypt a form of structure which contains the germ of a style practiced at a later age in Greece. Assyriayi. — Assyria comes next to Egypt for the age and importance of its buildings. The remains of some of these, which are chiefly palaces, are of great splendor. Among the oldest hitherto excavated is the Northwest Palace at Nimrod, built about 884 B. c. Persian. — Persia possesses, in the re- markable ruins of palaces at Persepolis and Susa, built in the 5th and 6th cen- turies B. c, remains which bear a close resemblance to those of Assyria, the constructional parts of these Persian buildings being chiefly of marble, where those of the Assyrians were of wood, having been much better preserved. Indian. — Examples of almost every kind of construction, both in wood and stone, are to be found in the various styles of this wonderful country. Until recent years, it was believed that the cave temples of India were of a very early date, but it has now been ascer- tained that none of these go further back than the 6th or 7th century of our era. All other ancient monuments in India, with the exception of the topes or pillars erected by the powerful ruler Asoka, are of still more recent date. Gi-ecian. — In historic times the Greeks developed an architecture of noble sim- plicity and dignity. This style is of modern origin compared with that of Egypt, and the earliest remains give in- dications that it was in part derived from the Egyptian. It is considered to have attained its greatest perfection in the age of Pericles, or about 460-430 B. c. The great masters of this period were Phidias, Ictinos, Callicrates, etc. Dis- tinctive of it are what are called the orders of architecture, by which term are understood certain modes of pro- portioning and decorating the column and its superimposed entablature. The Greeks had three orders, called respec- tively the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The most remarkable public edifices of the Greeks were temples of which the most famous is the Parthenon at Athens The architecture of ancient Greece flour- ished from 650 to 324 B. c. Their the- aters were semi-circular on one side and square on the other, the semi-circular part being usually excavated in the side of some convenient hill. A number exist in Greece, Sicily, and Asia Minor,^ and elsewhere. No remains of private houses are known to exist. By the end of the Peloponnesian War (say 400 B. c.) the best period of Greek architec- ture was over; a noble simplicity had given way to excess of ornament. RoTnan. — The Romans borrowed their early architecture from that of Greece and Etruria. They built basilicas, baths, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches, and domestic buildings. Besides the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Theater of Marcellus, and the remains of temples, baths, with their great vaulted halls, triumphal arches, and other monuments, still sur- vive as examples of ancient architecture in Rome itself, built between the time of Augustus in the last century B. C, and that of Constantine in the 4th century