Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/191

 THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. 175 verts a low capital into a high capital (a similar feature occurs under the archaic Naucratis capital, and on the top drum of an Ionic shaft from Halicarnassus in the Museum) ; 3, the Ionic capitals of Bassa; itself with volutes at all the angles ; 4, there was the concurrent growth of scroll and foliage decoration generally as at the Erechtheum and on the steles. (Fig. 171.) There is no reason, it seems to me, to call in aid metal-work technique, as Choisy and others have done, although Kalli- machos, the author of the bronze palm tree of the Erechtheum, may very well, as according to the tradition of Vitruvius he did, have made the actual step in the development which, as it did happen, we may call inevitable. The Bassae capital is so simple, and the Ionic volute is so marked a feature in it, that we might almost as well call it ornate Ionic as early Corinthian, indeed, Leake did call it Ionic. Cockerell in his restoration was biassed a little too much in the " Corinthian " direction. He seems to have exaggerated the rows of acanthus leaves around the bottom, and especially to have minimised the angle volutes. By comparison with the later, and more lately found Epidaurus capital, we may say that these last were large and distinct. (Fig. 172.) Fig. 173. — Antefix. At Bassae, then, all " three orders " were used, although the newest one was represented by only one central and precious column. At Tegea, in the temple built by Scopas, c. 395, and also in the Peloponnesos, the exterior was again Doric and the interior Ionic, but the inner row of external columns at the ends was Corinthian. Another evidence of the new spirit of variation in Greek art is to be found in the lacunaria of Bassae, where we find lozenge- shaped coffers as well as square ones. Similar coffers are found again at the still later rotunda at Olympia, c. 330. Another variation is the coming of carved decoration in the place of merely painted ornament. The antefixae of the roof have carved palmettes with acanthus leaves at the base. (Fig. 173.) Furtwangler considered that the acanthus was first adopted into ornament at the Erechtheum, and that the temple of Bassffi by