ATTIC BASE, the term given in architecture to any column base (q.v.) consisting of an upper and lower torus (q.v.) sepa rated by a Scotia (q.v.). Used first by the Greeks in connection with the Ionic order, it became the favourite base of the Romans and is common in Byzantine, Romanesque and early Gothic work. ATTICISM. (I) Taking the side of Athens in the Pelopon nesian war, a word formed similarly to medism (taking the side of Persia in the Persian war) ; (2) the artificial imitation of Attic Greek in Hellenistic literature. (See GREEK LITERATURE.)