In the Order (Fig. 79) from Asher Benjamin, is a detail of the Corinthian capital with the principal dimensions for the different parts of the Order of which it composes a part. To epitomize the study of this Order, Plate XLVIII shows in a sort of parallel the assembled three most curious types of Corinthian capitals of which we know. These are from the Monument of Lysicrates, the Porch from the Tower of the Winds, and the Capital of the Tholos at Epidauros.
It is in the Ionian villages of Asia Minor that the Order was most used for the decoration of the porticos and cellar of temples; and the capital from the Temple of Zeus at Athens is the type most frequently used in Asia Minor and in Italy. After the Roman conquest it was frequently employed; and, transplanted to Rome, the version of the Corinthian Order there developed met with the greatest favor.
Caryatids. The Greeks, in place of columns, occasionally used the figures denominated caryatids for the support of their entablatures, the most fan* us example of which is the porch of the Triple Temple of the Erechtheum at Athens. It is possible that the use of human figures for this purpose may have been suggested by some of the earlier Egyptian piers or columns carved with the figures of kings and gods.
The use of a human figure in the place of a column to support an entablature, may be considered as possibly a fourth Greek "Order." There are two varieties of this Order, the Persic and the Caryatid.
The Persic corresponds to the Doric column, the statue of a man taking the place of the shaft, and the entablature here still partakes of the Doric character; while in the Caryatid Order the column is replaced by a woman, and the entablature partakes more of an Ionic character.
The Persic Order was employed in the cella of the gigantic Tem ple of Zeus at Agrigentum; and it seems to have been often used as the second Order which we find placed over the column in the center aisle of many Greek temples to support the entablature, on which in turn rested the covering of the naos or nave.
We find on the Acropolis at Athens, on the face of the Erechtheum towards the Parthenon, a superb example of the Caryatid order (Fig. 80). This is the only instance of the use of figures to replace columns in this position, where they take the place of a principal Order and are actually placed in direct comparison, by their close juxtaposi tion, to large Ionic shafts. The caryatids are kept in scale with the building and surroundings, and still attain the requisite height by the simple expedient of placing them upon a short section of wall, or pedes tal, treated with an ornate Ionic ant cap and base-mould (Fig. 81). This is practically the first instance of the stylobate being given such a distinctive and different treatment; and it was not till almost 100 years later that the columns of the Monument of Lysicrates were placed on their raised basement or pedestal, a custom which the Romans later adopted in many of their buildings.
In place of capitals, these statues carry on their heads a sort of cushion of round mouldings (Fig. 82), which in turn carries the en tablature. But though the entablature approaches that of the Ionic Order in the richness and ele gance of its decoration, and presents a most beautiful sim ilarity to the Ionic, we notice that the frieze of the entabla ture is completely suppressed. In effect the cornice rests di rectly on the mouldings crown ing the architrave.
The caryatid ,sometimes supported a complete Ionic or Corinthian . capital upon i t s head, in the place of the mouldings found on the cary atid in the Erechtheum tri bune, though there is no extant example belonging to a good epoch, of such treatment.