The

lofty-toofed. The walls were brazen on every side, from the threshold to the innermost part. This, however, is rather poetic. The coping Sprykos was of a blue colour. interior doors are described as gold. The jambs of them, σтa@uot, were of silver on a brazen threshold. The lintel veр@upio was silver, and the cornice Koown of gold. Statues of dogs, in gold and silver, which had been curiously contrived by Vulcan himself, guarded the portal. Thus far, making all due allowance for the poet's fancy, we gain an insight into what was considered the value of art in his day, more dependent, it would seem, on material than on form. Seats seemed to have been placed round the interior part of the house, on which seats were cushions, which the women wrought. But we must return to the construction of the avλŋ, inasmuch as in it we find considerable resemblance to the rectangular and columnar disposition of the comparatively more recent temple.

139. It would be a hopeless task to connect the steps that intervened between the sole use of the altar and the establishment of the temple in its perfection; though it might, did our limits permit the investigation, be more easy to find out the period when the regular temple became an indispensable appendage to the religion of the country. It is closely connected with that revolution which abolished the civil, judicial, and military offices of kings leaving the sacerdotal office to another class of persons. Though in the palace of the king no portion of it was appropriated to religious ceremony, the spot of the altar only excepted, yet, as it was the depository of the furniture and utensils requisite for the rite of sacrifice, when the palace was no more, an apartment would be wanting for them; and this, conjoined with other matters, may have suggested the use of the cell. Eusebius has conjectured that the temple originated in the reverence of the ancients for their departed relations and friends, and that they were only stately monuments in honour of heroes, from whom the world had received considerable benefit, as in the case of the temple of Pallas, at Larissa, really the sepulchre of Acrisius, and the temple of Minerva Polias at Athens, which is supposed to cover the remains of Erichthonius. The passage in Virgil (Eu. ii. v. 74.)tumulum antiquæ Cereris, sedemque sacratam Venimus

The

is explanatory of the practice of the ancients in this respect; and, indeed, it is well known that sacrifices, prayers, and libations were offered at almost every tomb; nay, the restingplace of the dead was an asylum or sanctuary not less sacred than was, afterwards, the temple itself. From Strabo (lib. ii.) it is clear that the temple was not always originally a structure dedicated to a god, but that it was occasionally reared in honour of other personages. 140. Before proceeding to that which is more accurately known, it may not be uninstructive to the reader to glance at the houses of the Greeks, as may be gathered from passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey. We shall merely remind him that Priam's house had fifty separate chambers, though he lived in a dwelling apart from it. These houses were, in some parts, two stories in height. though the passages supporting that assertion (Iliad, B. 514–16. 184.) have been pronounced of doubtful antiquity. There is, how. ever, not the slightest doubt that the dwellings of the East consisted of more than a single story. David wept for Absalom in the chamber over the gate (2 Sam. xviii. 33.). The altars of Ahaz were on the terrace of the upper chamber (9 Kings, xxiii. 12.). summer chamber of Eglon had stairs to it, for by them Ehud escaped, after he had revenged Israel (Judges, iii. 20.; 1 Kings, vi. 8.). In the Septuagint, these upper stories are all represented by the word repwov, the same employed by Homer. The Jewish law required (Deut. xxii. 8.) the terraces on the tops of their houses to be protected by a battlement ; and, indeed, for want of a railing ( Odyss. K. 552. et seq.) of this sort, Elpenor, one of the companions of Ulysses, at the palace of Circe, fell over and broke his neck. The use of the word κλιμαξ in the Odyssey, connected with the words αναβαινειν and καταβαίνειν, and the substantive úñeрwov, is of frequent occurrence: it is either a ladder or a staircase, and which of them is unimportant; but it clearly indicates an upper story. To a comparatively late period, the Greek temple was of timber. Even statues of the deities were, in the time of Xenophon, made in wood for the smaller temples (lib. iv. c. 1.), where the revenue of them was not adequate to afford a more expensive material. But time and accidents would scarcely permit their prolonged duration, and none survived long enough to allow of a proper description of them reaching us. The principle of their construction necessarily bore some relation to the materials employed, and the use of stone must have imparted new features to them. In timber, the beam (epistylium), which was borne by the columns, would probably extend in one piece through each face of the building. But in a stone construction this could not take place, even had blocks of such dimensions been procurable, and had mechanical means been at hand to place them in their proper position. From this alone follows a diminution of spaces between the columns. The arch, be it recollected, was unknown. It is curious to observe that the relative antiquity of the examples of Grecian Doric may be expressed in terms of the intercolumniations; that is, the number of diameters forming the intervals between the columns. There is, moreover, another point worthy of notice, which is, that their antiquity may be also estimated by the comparison of the heights of the columns compared with their diameters. This, however, will require

further consideration when we come to treat of the orders: here it is noticed only incidentally. Though we are not inclined to place reliance on the account given by Vitruvius of the origin of the orders of architecture, we should scarcely be justified in its omission here. It seems necessary to notice it in any work on architecture; and, after remarking that the age which that author assigns for their origin is long before Homer's time, at which there seems no probability of their existence, from the absence of all reference to them in his poems, we here subjoin the account of Vitruvius (lib. iv. c. 1.):-" Doris, son of Hellen and the Nymph Orseis, reigned over Achaia and Peloponnesus. He built temple of this (the Doric) order, on a spot sacred to Juno, at Argos, an ancient city. Many temples similar to it were afterwards raised in the other parts of Achaia, though, at that time, its proportions were not precisely established. When the Athenians, in a general assembly of the states of Greece, sent over into Asia, by the advice of the Delphic oracle, thirteen colonies at the same time, they appointed a governer over each, reserving the chief command for Ion, the son of Xuthus, and Creusa, whom the Delphic Apollo had acknowledged as son. He led them over into Asia, where they occupied the borders of Caria, and built the great cities of Ephesus, Miletus, Myus (afterwards destroyed by inundation, and its sacred rites and suffrages transferred by the Ionians to the inhabitants of Miletus), Priene, Samos, Teos, Colophon, Chios, Erythræ, Phocæa, Clazomene, Lebedos, and Melite. This last, as a punishment for the arrogance of its citizens, was detached from the other states in the course of a war levied on it, in a general council, and in its place, as a mark of favour towards king Attalus and Arsinoe, the city of Smyrna was received into the number of the lonian states. These received the appellation of Ionian, after the Carians and Lelega had been driven out, from the name of Ion, the leader. In this country, allotting different sites to sacred purposes, they erected temples, the first of which was dedicated to Apollo Panionius. It resembled that which they had seen in Achaia, and from the species having been first used in the cities of Doria, they gave it the name of Doric. As they wished to erect this temple with columns, and were not acquainted with their proportions, nor the mode in which they should be adjusted, so as to be both adapted to the reception of the superincumbent weight, and to have a beautiful effect, they measured a man's height by the length of the foot, which they found to be a sixth part thereof, and thence deduced the proportions of their columns. Thus the Doric order borrowed its proportion, strength, and beauty from the human figure. On similar principles, they afterwards built the temple of Diana; but in this, from a desire of varying the proportions, they used the female figure as a standard, making the height of the column eight times its thickness, for the purpose of giving it a more lofty effect. Under this new order, they placed a base as a shoe to the foot. They also added volutes to the capital, resembling the graceful curls of the hair, hanging therefrom, to the right and left, certain mouldings and foliage. On the shaft, channels were sunk, bearing a resemblance to the folds of a matronal garment. Thus were two orders invented; one of a masculine character, without ornament, the other of a character approaching the delicacy, decorations, and proportions of a female. The successors of these people, improving in taste, and preferring a more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters to the height of the Doric column, and eight and a half to the Ionic. That species, of which the Ionians were the inventors, has received the appellation of Ionic. The third species, which is called Corinthian, resembles, in its character, the graceful elegant appearance of a virgin, whose limbs are of a more delicate form, and whose ornaments should be unobtrusive The following is the fabulous account of the origin of the capital of this order. (Fig. 93.) A Corinthian virgin who was of mar

riageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder: after her interment, her nurse, collecting in a basket those articles to which she had shown a partiality when alive, carried them to her tomb, and placed a tile on the basket, for the longer preservation of its contents. The basket was accidentally placed on the root of an acanthus plant, which, pressed by the weight, shot forth, towards spring, its stems and large foliage, and in the course of its growth, reached the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the extremities. Callimachus, who, for his great ingenuity and taste in sculpture, was called by the Athenians KaTaTeXvos, happening at this time to pass by the tomb, observed the basket and the delicacy of the foliage that surrounded it. Pleased with the form and novelty of the combination, he took the hint for inventing these columns, using them in the country about Corinth," &c. Now, though we regret to damage so elegant and romantic a story, we must remind those who would willingly trust the authority we have quoted, that Vitruvius speaks of matters which occurred so long before his time, that in such an investigation as that before us we must have other authentication than that of the author we quote, and most especially in the case of the Corinthian capital, whose type may be referred to in a

vast number of the examples of Egyptian capitals, one of which, among many, is seen in fig. 94.

141. The progress of the art in Greece, whose inhabitants, in the opinion of the Egyptian priests in the time of Solon, were so ignorant of all science that they neither understood the mythology of other nations nor their own (Plato, in Timeo), cannot be satisfactorily followed between the period assigned to the siege of Troy and the time of Solon and Pisistratus, or about 590 B. c. But it is, however, certain that within four centuries after Homer's time, notwithstanding their originally coarse manners, the Grecians attained the highest excellence in the arts. Goguet is of opinion the nurture of the art was principally in Asia Minor, in which country, he thinks, we must seek for the origin of the Doric and Ionic orders, whilst in Greece Proper the advancement was slow. The Corinthian order was, however, the last invented, and it seems generally agreed that its invention belongs to the mother country; but this we shall not stop to discuss here. The Temple of Jupiter, at Olympia, one of the earliest temples of Greece (Pausanias, Eliuc. Pr. c. 10.), was built about 630 years before the Christian æra; and after this period were reared temples at Samos, Priene, Ephesus, and Magnesia, and other places up to that age when, under the administration of Pericles, the architecture of Greece attained perfection, ai d the highest beauty whereof it is supposed to be susceptible, in the Parthenon (fig. 95.)

F. 91.

RGYPTIAN CAPITAL.

at Athens. The date of the erection of one of the temples of Diana, at Ephesus, was as reinote as that of the temple of Jupiter. If Livy had sufficiently our confidence, and we concede that other writers corroborate his statement (lib. i. c. 45.), its date is as ancient as the time when Servius Tullius was king of Rome. Great, however, as were the works which the Grecians executed, the mechanical powers were, if one may judge from Thucydides (lib. iv.), not then compendiously applied for raising weights.

The

142. The origin of the Doric order is a question not easily disposed of. Many provinces of Greece bore the name of Doria; but a name is often the least satisfactory mode of accounting for the birth of the thing which bears it. We have already attempted to account for the parts of this order by a reference to its supposed connection with the hut. writer, in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, truly says that if the Doric had an inventor, that inventor was a people whose wants were, for a long period, similar, and with whom a style of building prevailed suitable to their habits and climate, though but slowly modified and carried to perfection. At the beginning of this section, we have, however, sufficiently spoken on this matter. But there are some peculiarities to be noticed with respect to the Doric order, which we think will be better given here than in the third book, where we propose to treat of the orders more fully; and these consist in the great differences which are found in its proportions and parts in different examples. For this purpose, several buildings have been arranged in the following table, wherein the first column exhibits the name of the building; the second the height of the column, of the example as a nume

rator, and its lower diameter as a denominator, both in English fect; the third is the quotient of the second, showing the height of the column, expressed in terms of its lower diameter; the fourth column shows the height of the entablature in terms of the diameter of the column; the fifth column gives the distance between the columns in the same terms; and the sixth shows the height of the capitals also in the same terms : —

143. Casting our eye down the third column of the above table, we find the height of the column in terms of its lower diameter varying from 4.065 to 6.535. Lord Aberdeen (Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Greek Architecture, 1822) seems to prefer the proportion of the capital to the column, as a test for determining its comparative antiquity; but we are not, though it is entitled to great respect, of his opinion, preferring, as we do, a judgment from the height as compared with the diameter to any other criterion; although it must be admitted that it is not an infallible one. The last columns shows what an inconstant test the height of the capital exhibits. There is another combination, to which reference ought to be made, - the height of the entablature, which forms the third column of the table, in which it appears that the most massive is about one third the height of the whole order, and the lightest is about one fourth, and that these proportions coincide with the thickest and the thinnest columns.

144. The entasis or swelling, which the Greeks gave to their columns, and first verified by the observations of Mr. Allason, was a refinement introduced probably at a late period, though the mere diminution of them was adopted in the earliest times. The practice is said to have its type in the law which Nature observes in the formation of the trunks of trees. This diminution varies, in a number of examples, from one fifth to one third of the lower diameter; a mean of sixteen examples gives one fourth. The mere diminution is not, however, the matter for consideration; but the curved outline of the shaft, which is attributed to some refined perception of the Greeks

relative to the apparent diminution of objects as their distance from the eye was increased, which Vitruvius imagines it was the object of the entasis to correct. It cannot be denied that in a merely conical shaft there is an appearance of concavity, for which it is difficult to account. The following explanation of this phenomenon, if it may be so called, is given by our esteemed and learned friend, Mr. Narrien, in the Encyc. Metropol. art. Architecture. 66 When," he observes, "we direct the axis of the eye to the middle of a tall column, the organ accommodates itself to the distance of that part of the object, in order to obtain distinctness of vision, and then the oblique pencils of light from the upper and lower parts of the column do not so accurately converge on the retina: hence arises a certain degree of obscurity, which always produces a perception of greater magnitude than would be produced by the same object if seen more distinctly. The same explanation may serve to account for the well-known fact, that the top of an undiminished pilaster appears so much broader than the body of its shaft; to which, in this case, may be added some prejudice, caused by our more frequently contemplating other objects, as trees, which taper towards their upper extremities." Connected in some measure with the same optical deception is the rule which Vitruvius lays down (book iii. chap. 2.) for making the columns, at the angles of buildings, thicker than those in the middle by one fiftieth part of a diameter, a law which we find followed out to a much greater extent in the temples of the Parthenon and of Theseus, at Athens, where the columns at the angles exceed in diameter the intermediate ones by one forty-fourth and one twenty-eighth respectively. Where, however, the columns were viewed against a dark ground, some artists think that a contrary deception of the eye seems to take place.

145. In the investigation of the Doric order, among its more remarkable features are to be noted the longitudinal striæ, called flutes, into which the column is cut; every two whereof unite, in almost every 'case, in an edge. Their horizontal section varies in different examples. In some, the flutes are formed by segments of circles; in others, the form approaches that of an ellipsis. The number all round is usually twenty; such being the case at Athens; but at Pæstum the exterior order of the great temple has twenty-four, the lower interior order twenty, and the upper interior sixteen only. It has been strangely imagined, by some, that these flutings, which, be it remembered, are applied to the other orders as well as to the Doric, were provided for the reception of the spears of persons visiting the temples. The conjecture is scarcely worth refutation, first, because no situation for the Soup>Sokn (place for spears) would have led to their more continual displacement from accident; and secondly, because of the sloping or hemispherical form in the other orders, the foot of the spear must have immediately slid off. Their origin may probably be found in the polygonal column, whose sides received a greater play of light by being hollowed out, refinement which would not be long unperceived by the Greeks.

146. We shall now notice some of the more important Doric edifices, as connected with the later history of the Doric order, which was that most generally used by the European states of Greece, up to their subjugation by the Romans. The temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, at Egina, is probably one of the most ancient in Greece. The story, however, of Pausanias, that it was built by Aacus, before the war of Troy, is only useful as showing us its high antiquity. (Fig. 96.) The proportions of its columns and entablature are to be