Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/279

 Bk. III. Ch. II. CORINTHIAN TEMPLES. 247 least generally used, before the age of Alexander the Great ; the oldest authentic example, and also one of the most beautiful, being the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (b. c. 335), which, notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, is one of the most beautiful works of art of the merely ornamental class to be found in any part of the world, A simpler example, but by no means so beautiful, is that of the porticoes of the small octagonal building commonly called the Tower of the Winds at Athens. The largest example in Greece of the Corinthian order is the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. This, however, may almost be called a Roman building, though on Grecian soil — having been commenced in its j^resent form under Antiochus Epi- phanes, in the second century b. c, by the Roman architect Cossutius, and only finished by Hadrian, to whom probably we may ascribe the greatest part of what now remains. Its dimensions are 171 ft. by 354 ft., or nearly those of the interior of the great Hypostyle Hall at Karnac ; and from the number of its columns, their size and their beauty, it must have been when complete the most beautiful Corin- thian temple of the ancient world. Judging, however, from some fragments found among the Ionic temples of Asia Minor, it appears that the Corinthian order was introduced there before we find any trace of it in Greece Proper. Indeed, a prion, we might expect that its introduction into Greece was part of that reaction which the elegant and luxurious Asiatics exercised on the severer and more manly inhabitants of European Greece, and which was in fact the main cause of their subjection, first to the Macedonians, and finally beneath the iron yoke of Rome. As used by the Asi- atics, it seems to have arisen from the introduction of the bell-shaped capital of the Egyptians, to which they applied the acanthus-leaf, sometimes in conjunction with the honeysuckle ornament of the time, as in Wood- cut No. 133, and on other and later occasions together with the volutes of the same order, the latter combination being the one which ultimately prevailed and became the typical form of the Corinthian capitals. 133. Ancient Corinthian Capital. Brancliidae.) (From Dimensions of Greek Temples. Although differing so essentially in plan, the general dimensions of the larger temples of the Greeks were very similar to those of the