The type of temple building thus set remained constant through out the history of Greek architecture, although the refinements of taste and growing structural skill of the period succeeding the Persian wars led to the use of slenderer columns and more deli cate entablatures. The typical temple was surrounded by a col onnade, usually with six columns at each end, and with 12 or more on the sides. The walls of the enclosed cella were usually separated from the columns of the colonnade by a space wider than that between the columns and, following the old tradition, frequently projected in front of the doorway proper, forming, as it were, a little subsidiary porch inside the main colonnade. Within, the building was sometimes divided into two chambers, the larger in front, the smaller, rear chamber, being entered occa sionally from the larger, but often, as in the Parthenon B.c.), entered only from the rear porch. This rear chamber was frequently used as a treasury. The larger room was usually divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of columns, in most cases in two storeys, either with or without a gallery at the level of the lower entablature. At the end of the nave, opposite the entrance, stood the statue of the deity, which might be either an antique and shapeless tree trunk, going back to prehistoric times, or the most perfect colossal work of a sculptor like Phei dias, whose gold and ivory statues of Zeus in Olympia and of Athena in the Parthenon at Athens were perhaps the two most ad mired works of art of the ancient world. The interior was probably lighted only by light entering through the door ; this illumina tion, upon the rich colours of the painted architectural detail and the mass of votive offerings, and reflected from the white and gold of the statue, undoubtedly produced an effect of sombre and impressive richness. The same richness of colour and sculpture decorated the exterior. The entablature glowed with deep blues and reds, against which the metope sculptures were sharply re lieved. In the pediments above, great groups of free-standing sculpture, brilliantly composed, gave an adequate crown. In some cases the exterior walls were probably painted, as well.
The typical Greek temple, however, consisted usually of more than a single building, which was only the most important feature of the temenos. The sacred enclosure might contain, as well, smaller shrines of heroes or related deities; treasury buildings for gifts from special localities, like the treasuries at Olympia and Delphi; colonnades, as at Argos; and, in special cases, halls for mysteries and the like. Thus, such temples or sacred areas as those at Eleusis, Argos, Delos, Delphi and Olympia became vast congeries of all sorts of buildings devoted to the common purpose and use of aiding in some way the cult, and usually representing many periods of Greek history down to, and even later than, the Roman conquest.
In Asia Minor the Ionian influence, working on the same basis, produced effects of a different type. Not only was the Ionic order most commonly used in place of the Doric, hut also the sense of scale was different, and when the Doric builders sought beauty through perfection of detail and every possible refinement, the Ionians sought it through enormous size and lavish richness. Thus even the archaic temple of Artemis at Ephesus (early 6th cen tury B.C.) was of a scale scarcely ever attempted in Greece proper, prior to Roman times, and in the much later temples at Priene, Miletus and Sardis, great size and scale was the controlling force.
Etruria and Rome.—Etruscan temples are little known except from literary descriptions and certain remains of terra-cotta revet ments, or covering decorations for wooden members. It is well
established that the cella was much shorter than in Greek ex amples, approaching a square in plan, and that columns were lim ited to a porch in front, usually of great depth. The construction of the roof and entablature was apparently usually in wood, some times covered with terra-cotta plaques, and the spacing between columns was much greater than in Greek temples.
Roman temples, in plan, always retained the influence of their Etruscan prototypes, and the great temple of Jupiter on the Capi toline hill preserved to the end its primitive Etruscan lay out—a wide, shallow cella divided into three chambers, all opening out upon a deep, many-columned porch. The peripteral scheme, with columns on all four sides of the cella, appeared only in imperial times and was always rare, being reserved for the very largest and most monumental temples, such as the enormous double tem ple of Venus and Rome at Rome, designed for Hadrian, by Apollodorus of Damascus. The normal type, with a porch only in front, nevertheless, frequently had the cella walls decorated with pilasters or engaged columns. Thus the temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome (variously attributed to the beginning of the 2nd and the beginning of the ist century B.c.), has a range of engaged columns around three sides of the cella, matching exactly the col umns of the porch. The same treatment, on a much larger scale, is found in the Maison Carree at Nimes (c. A.D. I), which is the most perfect example of a Roman temple extant. Similarly based upon Etruscan tradition is the fact that all Roman temples were raised upon high podia (base or pedestal), whose side walls pro jected forward and received the ends of a great flight of entrance steps. Roman temple interiors were usually both larger and more lavish than the interiors of Greek temples, and the larger exam ples were frequently vaulted with richly coffered barrel vaults. This led also to a greater enrichment of wall design, and walls, beside being cased in rich marbles, were often enriched with pilas ters or engaged columns, and further decorated with small niches pediment-crowned and flanked by columns. The most extraor dinary examples of this type of development extant are the tem ples comprising the great group at Baalbek in Syria, the ancient Heliopolis (begun during the reign of Hadrian and completed early in the 3rd century). The cella of the temple of Bacchus, the smaller of the group, still remains, in large measure complete up to the cornice, and shows ranges of engaged Corinthian columns, and between them arched recesses below, and pedimented statue frames above. The great temple of Jupiter is chiefly remarkable for its enormous forecourt, colonnaded and with great niches, and in front of that an hexagonal court, and the colonnaded propylaea. Both of these temples have colonnades all around, in the Greek manner, and the same is true of the contemporary double temple of Venus and Rome at Rome, in which the sur rounding colonnade was double. This temple is also remarkable for the two apses back to back in which the statues of the two divinities were placed. The side walls were treated with niches and columns in a way much resembling the Baalbek example. The surroundings of Roman temples never had the informal charm of the Greek temenos, but were usually surrounded by a rectangular courtyard with colonnades, like that of the temple of Venus and Rome, or the temple of Apollo in Pompeii (rebuilt c. A.D. 65). Other temples were placed merely at street corners, like the temple of Fortune at Pompeii, of early imperial date, or the temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome. Many temples were also placed in or facing the forum, which served, itself, as the temenos or sacred area.