Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/290

 258 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Pa14T I. abacus are not cut off ; and that, being executed in Athens, there is a degree of taste and art displayed in its execution which we do not find in any Roman examples. Strictly speaking, however, it belongs to that school, and should be enumerated as a Roman, and not as a Grecian, example. Caryatides. It has been already explained that the Egyptians never used cary- atide figures, properly so called, to support the entablatures of their architecture, their figures being always attached to the front of the columns or piers, which were the real bearing mass. At Per- sepolis, and elsewhere in the East, we find figures everywhere em- ployed supporting the throne or the })latform of the palaces of the kings ; not, indeed, on their heads, as the Greeks used them, but rather in their uplifted hands. T he n a m e, however, as well as their being only used in con- junction with the Ionic order and with Ionic de- tails, all point to an Asiatic ori- gin for this very q nest i o n a b 1 e form «)f art. As employed in the little ])ortico at- l.ltntU lO ^i"- from the Erectheium. 142. Caryatide Figure !n the British Museum. E re ch theiuni, these figures are used with so much taste, and all the ornaments are so elegant, that it is difficult to criticize or find fault ; but it is never- theless certain that it was a mistake which even the art of the Greeks could hardly conceal. To use human figures to support a cornice is