Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/441

Rh CORINTHIAN ] The back of the triple temple, between the attached columns, presents one of the only two examples in Greek architecture of windows, the other being that of the temple of the Giants at Agrigentum. These are rather more than twice their width in height, and are narrower at the top than at the bottom. They rest on a broad, bold sill, which is equal in depth to two-sixths of the opening, and are surrounded externally by a congeries of mouldings, which, with a plain fascia, constitute an archi trave. This architrave is one-fourth the opening in width; it diminishes with the window, and in the same proportion, and is returned above in two knees, which are made verti cal to its extreme point at the base. The Grecian Corinthian (Plate XII.) The traditionary tale Vitruvius relates regarding the in vention of the Corinthian capital (about Callimachus and the basket on the grave of the Corinthian virgin), is the only reason for the name it bears. His account of the origin of this third species of columnar composition is even more absurd than what he gives of the other orders. He says that it- was arranged &quot;to represent the delicacy.:of a young girl whose age renders her figure more pleasing and more susceptible of ornaments which may enhance her natural beauty.&quot; With much more reason might the Doric be called the Corinthian order ; for, as previously stated, the oldest existing example of that style is at Corinth ; whereas there is nothing, either in ruins or authentic records, to prove that the latter was ever known in that city. Columns with foliated capitals are not of very early date in Greece ; earlier examples exist in Asia Minor, and foliage adorns the capitals of columns in some of the Pharaonic monu ments of Egypt. In the Assyrian sculptures, however, the Corinthian capital is clearly shown. The interior of the temple of Apollo Didymseus, at Miletus in Ionia, exhibits the earliest example of the acanthus leaf arranged round the drum of a capital in a single row, surmounted by the favourite honeysuckle ; but that edifice was con structed about a century before Callimachus is understood to have lived. The only perfect columnar example in Greece itself of this species of foliated capital is of later date than, and is a great improvement on, that of Miletus ; it is the beautiful little structure called the choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens. (Plate XII. figs. 1,2, 3.) Specimens of square or antse capitals enriched with foliage are less uncommon in Greece than of circular or columnar capitals; but they are almost invariably found to have belonged to the interior of buildings, and not to have been used externally. In considering Greek architecture, it is necessary to bear in mind that it ceases almost immediately after the subjection of Greece to the Roman power; for though there are many edifices in that country in the style of columnar arrangement of which we are now speak ing besides those referred to, they belong to Roman, not to Greek architecture. The earliest of them, perhaps, and certainly the least influenced by Roman taste, is the structure called the tower of the Winds, or of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, at Athens. The Agora, or Doric portico, as it is sometimes designated, in the same city, is a spurious ex ample of Greek Doric, evidently executed under the Roman domination. The importance which the Greeks attached to a graduated stylobate, and the necessity of giving it a relevant proportion in a columnar ordinance, are shown in the building above mentioned, which is the only example of this order of Grecian origin remaining to us. Unlike the Doric and Ionic in its application, this order is represented in a small circular structure, resting on a lofty square basement ; and yet, like those orders, it has a stylobate in receding courses . (dec Plate XII. fig. 3), and in plan, too, corresponding with ARCHITECTURE 407 the arrangement of the columns, and not with that of the substructure, this furnishing further proof that the stylo- bate was considered a part of the columnar ordinance. The Corinthian column is ten diameters in height. The base is composed of a torus and fillet ; a scotia and another similar fillet, rather less than the former ; and a second torus or reversed ovolo, on which rests a third fillet basing the apophyge of the shaft. The shaft diminishes with entasis to five-sixths of its diameter at the hypotrachelium, and, like that of the Ionic order, has twenty-four flutes and fillets. The flutes are semi-ellipses, so deep as nearly to approach semi circles, terminating at the head in leaves, to which the fillets are stalks. The fillets are rather more than one-fourth the width of the flutes. The hypotrachelium is a simple channel or groove immediately under the capital. The capital itself is rather more than 1^ diameters in height ; its core is a perfect cylinder, in bulk rather less than the superior diameter of the shaft. This is banded by a row of water leaves, whose profile is a flat cavetto, one-sixth of the whole height, and another of leaves of the acanthus, with flowered buttons attaching them to the cylinder. The latter have the contour of a cyma-recta, and occupy one-third of the whole capital. Rather more than another third is occupied by calices and tendrils, which latter support a honeysuckle against the middle of the abacus. This member is in plan a square whose angles are cut off at 45, and whose sides are deeply concaved. In profile it consists of a narrow fillet, an elliptical cavetto or reversed scotia, and another fillet surmounted by a small ovolo, or rather a moulding whose profile is the quadrant of an ellipse. In the entablature (which is 2|- diameters in height), the architrave is divided, like that of the Ionic order, into three equal fascias, which are not perpendicular, but incline inwards, so that their lower angles are all in the same vertical line; this impends the surface of the shaft about one-third of the height from the base. The frieze is one plain band, slightly inclining inwards like the fascias of the architraves, and slightly projected beyond them. The cornice consists of a deep congeries of bed- mouldings, and a corona, with the accustomed small crown- mouldings and fillet. As in the Ionic cornice, additional height is given to the bed-moulds by undercutting the planceer. The cornice is surmounted by a cut fascia sup porting honeysuckle antefixse, which may indeed be taken as a part of the order, as the solitary example in question presents it. Of Corinthian anta? we have no examples, nor indeed have we of insulated columns ; but as we find in the Ionic examples quoted that the attached columns are less in proportion to the entablature than those which are insulated, we may conclude that it would be the same with this, thus reducing the entablature to two diameters, the ordinary average of that part in Greek columnar archi tecture. The Caryatides, or Caryatic Order (Plate XII.) Besides the three species of columnar arrangement enu merated above, the Greeks employed another in which statues of women occupied the place of columns. The origin of this order is furnished by Vitruvius in a story which is as usual totally unsupported by history or ana logy. Nevertheless it has fixed the nomenclature, such figures being called Caryatides, and the arrangement the Caryatic order. The use of representations of human and other figures with or instead of columns is, however, common in Egypt and India ; and to the former tho Greeks were doubtless indebted for the idea, though they appear to have restricted its application to human female figures. Mr Gwilt infers from various facts connected with the worship of Diana Caryatis, &quot; that the statues